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Welcome to Plum Landing.
"A City in the Forest."
Today, we're on a mission for Plum.
We're going to see how lots of different animals
live together in the forest.
Welcome to the forest.
This is a forest area.
It's actually in the city,
and this is where plants and animals live.
This is the city that plants, animals and insects live in.
Imagine the tall trees as buildings
where animals live and work.
Jessie is a forest ranger for the U.S. Forest Service.
My name is Henry,
and I'm here with Zuzu, Davin, Mira, Tessa and their dad, Elon.
Plum and the kids were basically exploring a jungle,
which is a special kind of forest called a rainforest.
And we're in a forest too-- a New England forest.
We learned about how the forest is different from the jungle
and how it's similar.
There are a lot of trees in a jungle
and there are a lot of trees here.
In a jungle, there's activity up in the tops of the trees
and there's a lot happening in the tops of the trees here
that we don't see right away.
Did you see any signs of animals in the tree canopy?
I saw some holes in the leaves
that are probably made by inchworms.
I saw a chipmunk.
So let's take a look at this log.
Even though it looks like it's dead,
it's actually full of life.
Come on in close.
I found a few holes.
Those holes were created by insects
that were feeding on the wood
and helping this tree to decompose.
The animals, they kind of make these logs
and these trees their home.
They're like apartment buildings for insects.
When we look down there, we see spider webs in the dark.
There are some spiders.
The spiders are hoping to catch some of those insects.
It looks like coral, and I think it's fungus.
It's kind of surprising.
It's very soft and very smooth, too.
Look what's crawling around on the colorful fungus.
Oh wow, that is nice.
Look at the little fruit flies.
I'm going to draw a picture of this for Plum.
We're collecting data
because we want to show Plum the ecosystem of the forest.
Is that a rock or is that something growing in the log?
It kind of looks like a mushroom or something.
I'm making a sketch for Plum
so she can see this mushroomy thing.
Hey, Jessie, I have a question for you.
Do you think it was here before the tree fell or after?
You know, I don't know
because maybe the tree was standing dead
long before it actually fell over
and the fungus is actually living off of the dead wood.
I think it's important to learn about nature and the environment
because it helps people understand nature better.
Nature is basically a part of us.
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