Dear #bioSMTP participants,
Sample bottles and Malaise traps are starting to arrive back at BIO!
We are hard at work processing these samples and hope to issue your results in December!
Thank you for participating and stay tuned!
Tag Archives: #bioSMTP
Trap is set … in the Garden??
Up and running here at Highlands School in Edmonton. Had to make some tough choices about where to put the trap … ended up deciding it stood its best chance at staying undisturbed in our vegetable garden area. Hopefully we don’t capture all our pollinating insects.
Happy Day 1 of Collecting!
Dear #bioSMTP participants,
Happy collecting on this first day of trap deployment! Several of you have been tweeting and blogging pictures and we are so glad that you have found the perfect locations for your Malaise traps! We encourage you and your class to take a “#SMTPselfie” with your trap as well as tell us about the weather in your area!
Don’t forget to start filling out the “collection record spreadsheet“, as you will need to submit this document to us at the end of the program (hard or electronic copy).
Happy collecting!
SMTP Team
Registration is now OPEN for the School Malaise Trap Program!
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 (
For further registration details, please visit the following link: How to Register
It’s #GivingTuesday! Please help to support the School Malaise Trap Program!
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.
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/
Sincerely,
The School Malaise Trap Program Team
Please Help Us Keep The Program Alive! #GivingTuesday!
Dear Friends,
Tomorrow is #GivingTuesday and this year, the School Malaise Trap Program will be part of a crowdfunding campaign through @UofG! Through your generous support we hope to keep this unique #CitizenScience program alive for students across Canada.
Please share/donate today! #DNAbarcoding #EnviroEd
School Malaise Trap Program Data Published in Open Access Journal, PLOS ONE
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:
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
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR 2015 FALL SCHOOL MALAISE TRAP PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS!
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 |
#bioSMTP packages are being shipped today!
Hello All,
School Malaise Trap Program packages are ready and waiting to be shipped today via FedEx! Keep an eye out for your school’s package!
