Archives par mot-clé : #bioSMTP

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Registration is now OPEN for the School Malaise Trap Program!

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Attention Teachers!

Registration is now open for the Fall 2016 School Malaise Trap Program!

Interested teachers are encouraged to complete the Fall 2016 Registration Form.  It is to be filled out electronically and delivered via email to info@malaiseprogram.ca (please open the form in Adobe Acrobat and save before sending, otherwise the form we receive will be blank).  Please note that the deadline for registration is Monday, August 1, 2016. Spots are limited so it is best to register as early as possible. The coordinating team will review applications and begin contacting schools at the end of August to confirm registration and provide specific details about the program.

For further registration details, please visit the following link: How to Register

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It’s #GivingTuesday! Please help to support the School Malaise Trap Program!

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Dear Educators and Friends of the School Malaise Trap Program,

Today is Giving Tuesday, the global day of giving, and we are excited to announce that this year the School Malaise Trap Program will be hosting a crowdfunding campaign through the University of Guelph!

Over the past three years, the program has become an outstanding success through the constant dedication of educators, students, and supporters of the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario. Through our generous funders we have been able to reach nearly 15,000 students and over 250 schools across Canada! Furthermore, the scientific findings associated with the program are quite impressive. Over 6,500 arthropod species have been collected by participants, with 1041 of those species being new to BOLD.

As resources diminish, we are asking for support from generous donors like you so that we may keep the program alive! This year we are hoping to raise at least $10000 in order to keep the program free for participants (average cost = $1000 per participant). For more information about our program costs and our goals, please click here.

Every little bit helps! If each person who receives this email donates $15.43, we would be able to reach our goal TODAY! We ask that you kindly consider donating as well as spreading the word by forwarding this email or sharing it via social media.

SMTP-donate

All donations are eligible for a tax receipt, and you can feel good about continuing to bring modern biodiversity science to students and educators across Canada. We thank you in advance for your contribution to keep this valuable educational opportunity alive!

Check out our School Malaise Trap Program donation video here:  https://youtu.be/U7Cs1ZlttQI

Sincerely,
The School Malaise Trap Program Team
Back at BIO, Fall 2015, School Malaise Trap Program

School Malaise Trap Program Data Published in Open Access Journal, PLOS ONE

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Hello #bioSMTP participants (past and present)!

Today, the School Malaise Trap Program Team has exciting news to share with you about your contributions to biodiversity research and the international scientific community.  Quite recently, a research article titled « Exploring Genetic Divergence in a Species-Rich Insect Genus Using 2790 DNA Barcodes » was published in PLOS ONE. The researchers utilized DNA barcode data collected by several School Malaise Trap Program participants to support their research. The Director of Education and Outreach at the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, Dr. Dirk Steinke, explains the significance of your contributions in a recent blog post entry on his site (http://dna-barcoding.blogspot.ca/) and has allowed us to re-post it below for your convenience:

School DNA Barcodes Published
Participants of the School Malaise Trap program told us repeatedly that perhaps the most important aspect of the project, the one that students regard as particularly exciting, is the fact that they take part in the creation of a valuable public and scientific resource. They know their work will have a lasting impact. In case there are people that had any doubts that school data would actually be used in science let me point you to a new paper published just yesterday. Research colleagues in Norway analysed data of the chironomid genus Tanytarsus:
 
We explore the quality of DNA barcodes to delimit species in the diverse chironomid genus Tanytarsus (Diptera: Chironomidae) by using different analytical tools. The genus Tanytarsus is the most species-rich taxon of tribe Tanytarsini (Diptera: Chironomidae) with more than 400 species worldwide, some of which can be notoriously difficult to identify to species-level using morphology. Our dataset, based on sequences generated from own material and publicly available data in BOLD, consist of 2790 DNA barcodes with a fragment length of at least 500 base pairs. A neighbor joining tree of this dataset comprises 131 well separated clusters representing 121 morphological species of Tanytarsus: 77 named, 16 unnamed and 28 unidentified theoretical species. 

 

Chironomids are notoriously common in Malaise trap collections. It comes to no surprise that a global search for data records will reveal some school samples. However, to my knowledge this is the first time such a result makes it into a research paper. In total the study includes 47 samples from Canadian schools. And here we go – congratulations to the following schools. Your data have just made it into PLoS ONE.

 

  • Belfountain Public School: Belfountain, ON
  • Centennial C.V.I.: Guelph, ON
  • John F. Ross C.V.I.: Guelph, ON
  • Hagersville Elementary School: Hagersville, ON
  • Listowel Central Public School: Listowel, ON
  • Craig Kielburger Secondary School: Milton, ON
  • Woodcrest Public School: Oshawa, ON
  • Owen Sound C.V.I.: Owen Sound, ON
  • Mornington Central School: Perth East, ON
  • Little Falls Public School: St. Marys, ON
  • St. Marys District C.V.I.: St. Marys, ON
  • Sacred Heart School: Teeswater, ON
  • Walpole Island Elementary School: Wallaceburg, ON
  • Donald A. Wilson Secondary School: Whitby, ON
Fall 2015

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR 2015 FALL SCHOOL MALAISE TRAP PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS!

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Thank you to all who applied for this Fall’s 2015 version of the School Malaise Trap Program! This version, we received an overwhelming amount of applicants to the program (~ 150 schools) from across Canada. We are thrilled with this response, and it is because of your continued enthusiasm and support of the program that we have become so successful.

We are pleased to announce the following 64 sites have been accepted into the 2015 Spring School Malaise Trap Program. Congratulations to all!

2015 Fall School Malaise Trap Program Participants:

School Province or State
Fr. Scollen School AB
Holy Cross Catholic School AB
Kate Chegwin Jr. High School AB
Monsignor JS Smith AB
New Horizons School AB
St. Michael AB
Sundre High School AB
Two Hills School AB
Arrowview Elementary School BC
Brooksbank Elementary School BC
Columbia Park Elementary BC
David Hoy Elementary BC
École Cedardale BC
Glenwood Elementary School BC
James Kennedy Elementary BC
Maple Ridge Secondary BC
Mount Moresby Adventure Camp BC
Nukko Lake BC
Salt Spring Elementary School BC
West Bay Elementary School BC
Oak Lake Community School MB
Onanole Elementary MB
Belleisle Regional High School NB
Moncton High School NB
Rothesay Park School NB
Random Island Academy NL
Chedabucto Education Centre/ Guysborough Academy NS
Cobequid Educational Centre NS
Assiginack P.S. ON
Blair Outdoor Education Centre ON
Camp Heidelberg Nature Centre ON
Colchester North ON
Crestview Public School ON
Cyril Varney Public School ON
Denlow PS ON
Eastdale CI ON
Elmvale District High School ON
Hamilton District Christian High School ON
Heartland Forest Nature Centre ON
Lorne Park Public School ON
Marchmont Public School ON
Nipigon Red Rock District High School ON
Patrick Fogarty Catholic S.S. ON
St. Anthony’s School ON
Stayner Collegiate Institute ON
Swan Lake Outdoor Education Centre ON
Swansea Public School ON
The Riverwood Conservancy ON
The York School ON
Thousand Islands Intermediate and Secondary School ON
Timiskaming District Secondary School ON
Toronto Botanical Gardens ON
W. R. Best Memorial Public School ON
Warden Avenue Public School ON
Woodbine Junior High School ON
Miscouche Consolidated School PEI
École Ducharme SK
M.C. Knoll SK
Preeceville School SK
Whitewood School SK
J V Clark YT
La Jolla Library CA
San Diego Central Library CA
Scripps Ranch Library CA