We know we shouldn’t be complaining, because it’s snowing in other places, but it still kind of sucks to have rain. About a week ago, it was nice and sunny, and there were a lot of open flowers and bugs to find for us Flora Fauna group members. However, this week it’s the complete opposite. The drizzly weather has caused flowers to close, has scared off bugs, and changed the mood of the environment. There was nothing really to find these past days, and even if we tried to find something, nobody would be in the mood to try because it’s raining. However, we have identified some of the species living around our area. This includes earthworms (Lumbricina), woodlouse (Porcellio Scaber and Oniscus Asellus), dandelions (Taraxacum), snails (Helix Pomatia), ants (Formicidae), and a flower called the Spring forget-me-not (Myosotis Arvensis). There was a moth that we tried to identify, but it flew away before we could get a good look at it. Hope to find some more creatures!
Archives quotidiennes :
No luck in Winnipeg!
Thursday morning, the 6M class got to visit the trap for their first time. With a high of 8°C that day, we didn’t expect many findings but they were happy to be going outside to collect some data. Here’s what they had to say:
Oh come on! We didn’t catch any bugs in our malaise trap. I t was our first visit, so you couldn’t expect a lot of bugs. This morning it was -5°C. I wish we had found a least something!
-Nasteho 6M
Today was the first time we went to see the trap. I thought we were going to catch a lot of insects but we didn’t catch anything.
-Jamal 6M
Today for the first time, my class went to see the trap. I personally think the trap is in a good place to catch bugs but it would help if it were warmer outside.
-Raphaël 6M
CMS – Week 2 – Day One – April 27th, 2015 Tent Building
So today our group set up the Malaise trap.
…
No one knew how to set up a tent.
So it was a mess. It didn’t help that it was raining harder than Hurricane Katrina, so we’re all arguing how to set up the tent while while water was falling from the sky. Sebastian, Asher, David, Bennet, and Ryan set up the tent, while Alex (Me) and April were watching them in case something wasn’t going right.
Alex and April were the only people who knew how to set up the tent, but they weren’t allowed to help set up unless people needed help (They did anyways). But in the end it worked out… The tent was finally built (Again), we were completely soaked, and my voice was gone from yelling at everyone on how to build the tent.
It was a great day!

CMS Observations Week 1
For the last week our class has been going outside to set up a tent, check on it, and take it down. For the first day we set the tent, it was a sunny day and there were many bugs out that day. Putting up the tent was a challenge at first, but the people who had practiced how to set up the tent came and helped. For the next few days we have been going out to the tent to check the levels of bugs, on the first day that we checked it, it was at 0.5. The second day it was at 1, the third time it was at 2. It was also at two on the fourth day.
We found that on the more rainy days we found that the bottle appeared to have more bugs in it, we think this because on the third day there where the most bugs in the bottle. When it was at level 2 it had roughly 25 to 50 bugs. And it stayed like that on day four. On the most recent day it was very wet, all of our feet got wet and it was raining a little bit but it wasn’t pouring.
We have the tent set up in between two poles and a tree, we have tape wrapped around the poles, this way kids from the school won’t go near it and possibly mess up the experiment. We usually do the tent during the morning hours, so that means that it’s never going to be the hottest hour of the day when we are outside. This shouldn’t have a big effect on the experiment because there usually aren’t any bugs around when we do it.
Most of the bugs that we are getting are either giant bugs that seem to look like mosquitoes, we are also getting smaller flies. On one of the days there was a wasp in the bottle. It showed up in the bottle on the hotter day of the week, that was day two.
No luck in Winnipeg!
Thursday morning, the 6M class went to visit the trap for their first time. With a high of 8°C, we still didn’t have much luck catching anything. We are still hopeful that the sunshine will encourage the bugs to visit our trap. Here are a few messages from the students:
Today for the first time, my class went to see the trap. I personally think the trap is in a good place to catch bugs but it would help if it got warmer outside.
-Raphaël 6M
Iona’s insect competition with a woodpecker!
Iona Academy, Eastern Ontario: Today we had to return our bottle of ethanol to our trap from week one because of the extended week. We did not move our trap’s location as we wanted to keep the same data as the previous week. The temperature today was a high of 12 degrees Celcius with a 10 percent chance of rain.
We also noticed that near our trap we got a visit from a large woodpecker! Look at his work. He is also trying to catch some insects! lol This week it has finally begun to warm up! So we hope to have more success in capturing the insects!!
Week 1 : Friday , April 24th
Daily High Temperature
- 6 Degrees
Cloud Coverage
- Overcast ( 90 % cloud coverage)
Catch volume ( How many insects were found)
- Today we discovered 28! insects.
Notes ( Trap Disturbances )
Another cold and wet day , but our » bug catching » was not interrupted. We ended the week one on a positive note and collected more bugs than we had done all week. Good job Team (: !!
Week 1 : Thursday, April 23rd
Week 1 : Wednesday , April 22nd
Daily High Temperature
- 5 Degrees
Cloud coverage
- Very cloudy ( 80% cloud coverage)
Catch volume ( How many bugs were captured )
- the total catch number for today was 20! insects.
Notes ( Trap Disturbances )
- Today was a very cold day , although some would think a cold day calls for very little bug activity that theory was proven wrong today with all the bugs that we found(:
Oh no! The trap was broken!
Over the weekend there was wind and a little bit of snow. This could have been the reason why our trap fell over. All of the pegs were ripped out of the ground and the whole trap fell down. We were lucky that we took the collection vessel out over the weekend!
St. Peter’s Grade 6 class
Unity, Sk