A group of Secondary students have been working on a Maple Syrup Project. We have tapped trees at the local park as well as a farm a couple of miles away from the school. We started collecting sap in the beginning of March.
When tapping the trees we had a drill to drill the wholes in the trees. We then inserted the taps into the trees. After that we put the clear plastic tubes onto the end of the taps and the tubes into the buckets. Next year we will be using new taps in order to have a tighter fit in the whole so we won't lose sap that way.
In order for the trees to produce sap the weather needs to drop below freezing at night and raise to above freezing during the day. This is because when the weather gets warm the water is pulled up through the trees roots to it's leaves and when the temperature drops the tree quickly pushes the sap down to the roots of the tree so that it doesn't freeze in it's branches. When the sap goes up and down like this it comes out of our taps and into our buckets.
We have collected roughly 100 gallons of sap. This does not mean that we will have 100 gallons of syrup though. It takes about 40 gallons of sap to make just one gallon of syrup. Soon we will be starting the evaporation process. This is where we boil the sap in a special evaporation pan, over a campfire for a few days, adding sap little by little as we go along. Eventually the water boils out leaving behind the sugary substance called Maple Syrup!
We will be selling our finished Maple Syrup as a fundraiser for our class once it is finished. If you are interested in purchasing some Maple Syrup from our classroom please contact Jamie Harper.
written by: Madison and Haley
Photos to come soon!
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