Before we went down to the pond, we stopped to see our Malaise trap. Our Malaise trap is set up in Milo’s backyard. We have caught some bugs, including a bumble bee.
Even though it snowed on the weekend, all the snow had melted. It was sunny and warm when we went there on Monday.
When we went to the pond, we saw leeches and dock spiders. I found some garbage and put it in our bag because then it won’t harm birds and other animals. We also saw beetles.
In the fall, our school, Evergreen Elementary, Grade Five students, set up our first School Malaise trap. After 5 months, we are going to set up our second trap for the spring project. We have not decided on our spot yet, but we are VERY excited!
Lexi
We did the School Malaise Trap Program. I am telling you about my walk to the trap. It was quick and there were a lot of leaves.
There were lots of homes; too many homes and they were big homes, almost too big. Miss Manicom’s backyard is where the trap was. We went through the the back and it was fun.
After the walk, we saw the trap. It had no bugs when we put the bottle on but after a couple of days we had more bugs. We received two bottles, one for week one and one for week two. It has been 2 weeks already and we have sent the bottles back to BIO in Guelph. In a few weeks, we will see how many insects and how many different kinds of insects we caught.
The Malaise trap program is fun because we can catch insects and they are an amazing species. On Friday Sept. 26 we took down the bottle for the week and we put up a brand new one. Ethanol is a poisonous liquid – really dangerous – don’t want to be around that stuff.
We all really want to catch a brand new insect!! I hope we get more insects than the first time.
We have been participating in the School Malaise Trap Program.
On Monday, September 22, we put the ethanol on the trap. (Don’t play with ethanol. It is very poisonous and flammable). We use ethanol because it preserves the bugs after they die in it. They die in the ethanol because it is poison. Again, ethanol is very poisonous.
The trap worked very well and we caught hundreds of tiny little insects. In our second week, we hope to catch more insects than before.
We decided to set up the trap at our teacher’s house so that it would not be disturbed. If it was disturbed, the specimens might fall out, the ethanol would spill, and some kids would get very sick from the ethanol on the ground, maybe even the fumes of ethanol could make them sick.
On September 22, we went to see our Malaise trap.The Malaise trap was smaller than I thought. When we went there, there were no insects in it.
The grade five students at Evergreen Elementary School of Drayton Valley, Alberta set up a Malaise trap in Mrs. Manicom’s backyard. I hope there will be at least 1 full mark of insects that flew into the ethanol by the end of the week. Ethanol is a type of alcohol that kills every insect that flies into it. After a week we take the bottle off and put a new one on. After two weeks we ship the bottles to the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario (www.biodiversity.ca) in Guelph, Ontario. They will DNA barcode all of the insects that we caught. In November they will give us a report on what we caught. It would be cool if we caught a unnamed insect.
On September 22nd Evergreen Elementary grade 5 started a Malaise Trap in our teacher’s backyard. The Malaise Trap hasn’t gotten very many bugs in there because we had a huge rain/thunder storm on Thursday, September 25th.
When we were at our Malaise we saw a wasp and hoped it would go in our Malaise Trap, but sadly it didn’t. We got lots of other types of bugs, but not as much as we hoped. I thought it was pretty good for our first week.
When our teacher looked inside the bottle we actually caught 2 wasps, 1 lady bug, and a lot of mini bugs and some other bugs too! I think Malaise Trap is really interesting.
A day that’s good for bugs and insects is when the sun is out. Heres a picture of how the trap’s set up!
It’s set up in Miss Manicom’s back yard because it’s the same ecosystem as our school yard.
We are going back on Friday, October 3 to see the progress of the trap. It’s a 7:00 min. walk but we don’t mind because it’s fun walking there and back.We get to talk to our friends and look at nature. We normally go and visit the trap on Monday and Friday. Both of the classes go, one after each other.
We have a lady bug climbing up into the bottle of ethanol to be caught and given a DNA barcode.
We haven’t caught much but that’s ok.
We saw a wasp on Monday, September 22, when we first went there, but the bottle wasn’t in the Malaise Trap yet. Then, on Friday when we had the bottle on, we caught some insects like a wasp and lots of flies.
We love the program and this Malaise Trap Program is fun because we are learning about insects. Flying insects go in the trap then die. We caught lots of them last week and we might catch more insects this week.