FOR KIDS: Cool Jobs: Green science

Scientists get at the root (and stem, leaf, flower, fruit and seed) of the relationship between plants and their environment

Scientists get at the root (and stem, leaf, flower, fruit and seed) of the relationship between plants and their environment

By Sharon Oosthoek

Web edition: March 14, 2013

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White spruce grow across northern North America, from Alaska to Labrador. As Arctic temperatures rise, spruce are spreading even farther north.

Credit: Mark W. Skinner/USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database

Even if trees cannot walk, they are still on the move.

In parts of the Arctic, entire forests are creeping northward. Luckily, ecologist Serge Payette is hot on their trail. Like the two other scientists we will meet here, Payette has spent decades trying to understand the often surprising ways plants influence their environment.

Together, these three experts are showing how plants don?t just colonize new surroundings, but also can warm and clean them. Some plants can even rid an area of any competing plants, using chemicals that continue to marvel scientists. As work by these scientists shows, plants do many things to interact with their environment ? and ours.

Visit the new?Science News for Kids?website?and read the full story:?Cool Jobs: Green science

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/348978/title/FOR_KIDS_Cool_Jobs_Green_science

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