It’s day 3 of our School Malaise Trap Program we started at Patrick Fogarty Catholic Secondary School! We have already noticed some big and small bugs starting to be collected in our catching bottle. It has started out as cold mornings at about 8C everyday, but we end the afternoon with some warmer weather of about 21C and lots of sun! We are all excited to continue to watch our catch volume rise!
The Waterloo Region District School Board (Ontario) has 5 day-use Outdoor/Environmental Education Centres. Last year we had visits from over 1,000 classes, about 23,000 students.
We have traps at two of our OEE Centres this fall – here at Blair in Cambridge, and at Camp Heidelberg in Waterloo. I just wrote a post for our own blog, so rather than repeat the whole thing, here is a link http://outdooredguys.wordpress.com
We are having beautiful warm September days so there is lots of insect activity out in the fields. Hope everyone has a successful trapping season…
The Malaise trap is fully deployed at Elmvale District High School. The students here are a-buzz (pun fully intended) with curiosity and excitement. The weather is perfect for flying insects in Elmvale this week – lots of sun and warm temperatures during the day.
Our First day’s catch:
Note: We will stop with the puns now.
The students at Elmvale District High School are excited to be a part of the School Malaise Trap Program. Our rural high school is in Elmvale, a small town north of Barrie, ON. We are lucky enough to have a stretch of the Wye River meander through school property, found close to the headwaters of the river. The river ultimately passes though the Wye Marsh in Midland and enters Georgian Bay. Last year, students in the environmental science class began the Wye River Rehabilitation project. During the semester, the students cleaned out the river. The planted trees and shrubs to stabilize the river banks and add important trees to the riparian ecosystem. The students also planted wildflower and native grasses to help improve the biodiversity along the river.
This year, the Grade 11 Biology class has set up the Malaise trap in a field above the river. This area is frequented by flying insects that travel along the river. We are excited to see what the trap catches. We are eager to contribute to the scientific knowledge that be acquired from the project. We cannot wait to see what the University of Guelph does with our collected insects.
After much anticipation, Ecole Cedardale’s Grade 7 class deployed our trap on our school grounds. We got many questions from excited observers and had the opportunity to share what we have learned about BIO and the Malaise Trap with our school community!