On Friday our class had a very good catch, we caught between 35 and 40 bugs! There were no disturbances to our trap. It was windy and cold, that was the only downside. But it didn’t seem to impact our catch! We continue to work together taking turns recording, measuring taking pictures, blogging and tweeting!
Today is the beginning of week 2. We have just replaced the bottle in the trap. The day is very miserable. It is raining lightly and overcast. The trap is under the tree which means it’s dry. More bugs might be caught because they will want to stay dry and go under the tree where the trap is. – Jamie, Sophie and Noelle
We went out in light rain to attache the bottle with ethanol today. We took pictures and stared to head inside. We just made it in before it started to pour rain!
– Ethan, James and William
Day three went well other than that we needed to move a peg because the trap was lops-sided. Weather was steady at 26oC and was pretty cloudy at 80% cover. We caught roughly 25 insects. The trap was not disturbed, but the tape was messed with.
Hi! St. Paul’s Collegiate is having a really good go product testing the Malaise Trap. We say that tongue in cheek as our conditions are nearly always very, very windy, and the durability of the trap is well-tested. It holds up well, though the collection bottle is tossed around incessantly. All of that said, there are numerous insects present. We have received many questions from interested staff and students who are not directly involved in the program but have otherwise become so via inquiry. It certainly gets mistaken as a tent with regularity!
Using scientific equipment and contributing to baseline data that drives research is a fundamentally important piece to any young person’s science education. This has certainly hit that mark. Then interest and inquiries will continue into Week 2!
All the best from the Manitoba prairie.
Today is the last day of week 1. It’s amazing that all these different schools are participating in this project. Today is 15 degrees Celsius out. It was raining and was windy. It is important to run the project the same two weeks for all schools so that the season is the same for all schools and the bugs collected can be compared.
-Owen, Michael, Annika
The weather in Fort Nelson, BC has been abnormally warm for September – usually we have snow and have dipped below 0 degrees! Students in Mrs Tofflemire’s Biology 11 class are super keen about our new project and always ask to check the trap to see what new insects have found their way into the sample jar. We have captured around 100+ insects this week. Fingers crossed that weather continues to be warm and sunny next week for even more sampling 🙂
Hi All,
Here in Menifee, CA it was blazing hot Monday morning when we put up the Malaise trap but then the clouds came rushing in. By the late afternoon a wind storm had hit and it was blowing our Malaise trap around. It rained through Tuesday and Wednesday and finally cleared up on Thursday. Today it was a pleasant 30C with no wind. We didn’t collect many insects this week, possibly because of the wind and rain, but we did catch a huge moth. I’m looking forward to next week and I hope the weather continues to be nice so that we can catch many more insects then.
Have a nice weekend,
Nick Reeves
Associate Professor of Biological Sciences
Mt. San Jacinto College
We are reporting in the neighbourhood of about 100 insects caught … what will week 2 bring?
Perhaps more bugs???
Although the tent was a bit twisted up from our strong winds, our bug count still increased to an astonishing 95 insects. This amount of insects caught surprises us because of the decline in temperature, we did not expect to catch this many. Our conclusion for week 1 is that bugs are still here even when we think that it’s too cold for them.
