All posts by Landmark Collegiate

Final collection day at Landmark Collegiate

Today it was 6 degrees outside, the coldest day this week. The rest of the week has been sunny and around 20. The ticks, flies and bees were beginning to reveal themselves around here. Today was also the last day of the collection experiment so we took down the Malaise trap. Our jar was quite full of bugs having all shapes and sizes inside!

Our trap was placed beside trees and weeds to attract the most bugs possible. Our school yard is unique because it literally has nothing on it besides a couple of baseball backstops.  Our town used to be a swamp which must have contained lots and lots of bugs but today it is dry and we currently have a fire ban in place.

I wonder how the biologists will sort out all the bugs because some of them are extremely small or in pieces. I also wonder how they will put our data to good use.

I find it kinda funny that some Alberta schools were getting snow. I’m thankful that I live here in Manitoba where the weather has been fairly stable and nice.

– Alain

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Our final catch for week 3 – (not quite as much as weeks 1 &2)

Week 2 Update from Landmark

I’m going to be completely honest here, this project makes me uncomfortable. I have never really liked bugs. They are a nuisance to me. They get in the way and invade every aspect of your life. They ruin picnics, get in your food and buzz around your head. I don’t remember a time when I looked at a bug and was like ‘Wow, look at that beautiful creature crawling along the sidewalk.’ But don’t get me wrong, bugs are very important. (Not that I care to admit it). They are part of a bigger picture, one that we don’t think about. They are food for other species like birds and bats. So this Malaise Trap project shows that a variety of bugs are important to keep our current ecosystem stable and afloat. It shows that even though we can’t see them all the time that there are many species around us. Now I still don’t like going and looking at the Malaise Trap but I do realize how important this project  is to study ecosystems.

– Blaire

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Week 1 bottle (after week 2)

Today it’s shaping up to be a warm day here in the heart of Canada. The temperature is around mid-twenties and there is a slight south-west wind. We hope the wind doesn’t negatively effect our trap. We just took down the week 1 bottle and the recent warm temperatures have brought in a lot of bugs. The amount we have collected is around level 1 and it looks as though we have a wide variety of insects. We can identify flies, bees, spiders and some smaller creatures that are hard to pinpoint. The next couple weeks are supposed to bring high temperatures which should result an increased level of trapped species in our bottles.
– Cari & Kristy

 

 

Updates from Landmark

April 23rd, 2015
The snow that we got the other day has all melted away and it is slowly starting to warm up. Hopefully that means that some insects come out soon! So far, our trap hasn’t caught any bugs. We’ve found that a few little pant seeds, and some specs of dirt floating around in the trap, but nothing to examine yet!!

-Olivia and Aliyah
Friday, April 24th
What’s up everyone! Landmark here. It’s been pretty chilly over here for the last few days, but at least all that nasty snow is gone. We’ve finally nabbed a few bugs in our trap – around 12 by my count. Two are small spiders, one is a female mosquito, and the others appear to be fruit flies. Not a terribly surprising count to be honest. Fruit flies often outnumber other insects here. Hopefully it warms up some so we can get more diversity!

– Tyra
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(end of week one)

A snowy start

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Today we started the School Malaise Trap Program. We are from Landmark Manitoba. Landmark is a small town right in the middle of Canada. Our school has 250 people our town has 2300 people.

We put the trap in the back of the school by the soccer field. We put it in the back to keep it sheltered from the weather and from people. This morning we woke up with snow on the ground so we might not have many bugs for a couple of days.

Cole and Vital