Monthly Archives: May 2015

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Introduction to DNA Barcoding: 8-Week Online Course

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Do want to learn more about DNA Barcoding?

Are you interested in:

  • gaining an understanding of DNA-based species identification and discovery?
  • reviewing the historical framework for species identification and learning why DNA barcoding presents an advance in the identification of existing species and discovery of new species?
  • exploring barcode workflows and applications in food safety, pest and health management, bio-surveillance, habitat monitoring, ecology, and conservation biology and evolution?
  • finding out how DNA barcoding can be turned into relevant classroom experience for your  students?

downloadBIO and the University of Guelph offer an 8-week online Introduction to DNA Barcoding distance education program.  This international course brings together researchers, educators, government regulatory staff, graduate students, forensic staff, lab technicians, and museum collection staff to teach skills in DNA Barcoding and species identification and discovery.

Sign up and be part of a truly international learning experience that requires around 4-6h/week of your time.

Course Dates: June 1 to July 24, 2015. Registration is open until June 5.

Back at BIO, School Malaise Trap Program

Announcing the Spring 2015 #SMTPselfie Winners!

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LifeScannerWe are pleased to announce the winners of our #SMTPselfie contest! Thank you to all who entered, we had some great pictures this program! The winners for the #SMTPselfie contest will receive a Life Scanner Kit  which will essentially allow them to DNA barcode 4 organisms of their choice and find out what species they are! Currently these kits are being offered for free + shipping online at the above mentioned link, so be sure to sign your class up for one!

 

And without further ado…the winners of the #SMTPselfie contest are:

 

1) M.C. Knoll Elementary School

 

2) John Polanyi Collegiate Institute

 

3) Iona Academy

 

4) Chedabucto Education Centre/ Guysborough Academy

 

5) École Précieux-Sang
#SMTPselfie

 

Congratulations to the winners, and a big thank you to all who participated! The Life Scanner Kits have been mailed and are on their way to you!

Currently, most of your specimens have been processed by the lab and have been uploaded to our online barcode reference library (BOLD). To learn more about the lab processes, please visit the following link: http://malaiseprogram.ca/how-it-works/in-the-lab/

 

We look forward to sharing the School Malaise Trap Program results with you soon!

 

Sincerely,
The School Malaise Trap Program Team
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Pictures from Mayaguez, Puerto Rico!

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Hello School Malaise Trap Program participants!

We thought you may be interested in seeing a few pictures of one of the Malaise traps participating in BIO’s Global Malaise Trap Program. The following pictures are of a Malaise trap deployed in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico.

This trap was deployed around the same time that you were collecting in your schoolyards. If you look closely, you can certainly see that the samples collected in this trap are very different from the ones collected in your traps.

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Back at BIO, School Malaise Trap Program, Spring 2015

Your Samples are Arriving!

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Hello School Malaise Trap Program Participants!

We are happy to say that we have received almost all of your Malaise trap samples for the Spring 2015 program! The rest of the samples are on their way, and we can’t wait to see what you have all collected.

Once your samples arrive at BIO, they go straight to our Collections unit, where they will be sorted by insect Order. As you can see from the pictures below, this can be quite a long and meticulous process.

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Spring 2015

That’s a Wrap!

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Here is the difference 3 weeks made… Wow! Shania George and I (Meagan Kettley) had a blast keeping track of our findings, the bug tent, and our class. Here is a photoset of two pictures; one from the beginning and one from the end.
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Here is a picture of our classmates packing up the tent. Sad faces all around as we packed up; the class really enjoyed checking for bugs everyday. It was an exciting class project.
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Our class cannot wait to hear back about the project. We hope that some of the bugs we caught are unknown bugs or rare bugs in our area. We think that it would be interesting if we found a new type of bug in our area, and if we find any endangered bugs, then we would like to do something to protect them.

After two weeks of unfortunate weather, and an extra week to make up for it (thankfully week three had gorgeous weather!), we found a whole bunch of bugs!
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Thank you for checking out our blog, and thank you to the School Malaise Trap Program for this incredible opportunity!

Spring 2015

Silverheights Blog 2

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What a day, good news is looks like over 50 bugs, and with a temperature of 33 and a cloud coverage of about 3%.  BUT there my not be any disturbances but the trap seems/looks to be collapsing. We had an entomologist from Scientist In Schools who asked us for tour of out trap/program. She took a look our trap and she was quite surprised of our progress. The last couple of weeks have been quite a few great ones and we hope to take part of this EPIC opportunity in future weeks.

Signing off,

SilverHights P.S