Tag Archives: insects

First week

Hi, we’re the grade 6 class at Chesley District Community School, in Chesley, ON. We set up our Malaise trap on Monday morning and our first thought was: this trap is so big, it must catch a lot of bugs! The next day we found out we were right, because not even 24 hours had caught bugs up to the first line. We chose the spot that we did because it is a fenced in area that cannot be disturbed by other students, and it is right next to a garden that is buzzing with wildlife at this time of year. We estimate that there will be lots of flies, bees, and other bugs that like weeds a lot. Our class appreciates nature and we are so excited to see what we have caught in our trap as citizen scientists!

Bee’s, Grasshoppers, and Flies at St Ignatius of Loyola Catholic School

Good afternoon,

St. Ignatius of Loyola Catholic School is excited to report that over 16 organisms were caught in the Malaise Trap today! New additions include: a bee, a small grasshopper, quite a few black flies, and mosquitoes. Take a look:

Bee on top
Bee on top

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Success at Jack Chambers P.S.

Hello there, my name is Alex and I am from Jack Chambers Public School. My class and I were pleased today to go out to our Malaise Trap to find many bugs captured. A classmate and I also witnessed an insect fly into the trap when we were out this morning. We’re very lucky to have the Malaise Trap where it is at the moment. It is about a  minute walk from our school, and is located by a pond just off the boundaries of our school yard. We’ve gone out every day for the past 3 days. We plan to continue to go out everyday for as long as we have the Malaise Trap. Even though today was our third day going out we have only captured a days worth of insects due to our epic fail (our bottle fell off during the first day). We will make sure to get more bugs especially with the new bottle that we’re getting. Thank you for the cool trap!

-Alex 🙂

Trap Set Up

7Marr set up our Malaise Trap this morning. We struggled a little with the guy ropes, but got the trap set! Jack used a hammer. He was pumped! We are anxious to see what insects we collect and are looking forward to being a part of this project. Today’s temperature is 19 degrees, but it feels like 25. The skies are overcast and there was a lot of rain last night. #hammer #buglife

Forest Avenue Public School

We are also very excited about our first experience  with the BIO Malaise Trap Program.  Our grade four class intends to set up our trap in the butterfly garden at the front of the school.  What an amazing opportunity to learn how real world science works to inform us about the world around us!  We look forward to sharing how the experience unfolds for us.

Jack Chambers Malaise Trap Blog

Tomorrow we’re going to set up our school Malaise trap! Our class at Jack Chambers P.S. is really excited. My name is Nabil, and this is the first time our school is doing something like this. We’re going to set up our trap near our school pond, and we can’t wait to see how many and what type of bugs we will find. Tomorrow we will write more about how we set the trap up and how it went.

Bye 🙂

Pack, Stack and Go! Preparing for the School Malaise Trap Program.

This is truly one of the most exciting and busy times of year for staff from all departments at the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario! Preparing for the School Malaise Trap Program requires extensive planning, coordination, organization, and a LOT of tape (with a little luck thrown in along the way).

And here we are! The program packages have been sent out, and shortly, students from 61 schools across Canada will be monitoring a Malaise Trap in their schoolyard for a 2 week period from September 22nd – October 3rd, 2014, in order to assess their local insect biodiversity.

When we mentioned a lot of tape, we meant it! Check out the picture below of our School Malaise Trap Program packages right before they were about to be shipped – 61 packages in total!

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So let us tell you a little bit about how we got to this stage and what can be found in each of these boxes. Each package is 30″ x 14″ x 7″ and weighs approximately 14 lbs. Individual packages will contain a Malaise Trap, which is about the size of a small tent (6 feet tall and 6 feet long), a program information folder for instructors, and a “research in progress” sign which is to be placed on the Malaise Trap once it is assembled. We also include swag, such as buttons and bookmarks, for all of the students involved in the program. Currently, we have 2,526 students enrolled in the Fall 2014 version of the program from 94 classrooms. Literally, this means that staff at BIO must count out the appropriate number of bookmarks, buttons, pens etc… for each student in each of the participating classes! As you can imagine, this process can be quite time consuming so we do our best to start preparing for each program as soon as possible!