Lucky Lake School

Hello!

We are the grade 3/4 class in Lucky Lake.

Today we are going on a hunt to find the perfect spot for our trap.

We are so excited and so happy to have been chosen to participate in this program.

We have some questions that we would like to ask you:

1. What does the trap look like?

2. How do the creatures survive once they are trapped?

3. How long do we get to use the trap at our school?

4. How do the bugs get into the trap?

Sincerely,

Grade 3/4 class

 

 

One thought on “Lucky Lake School”

  1. Hello Lucky Lake School,

    We are glad to have you in the program and great questions!

    In order to answer questions 1 and 4, please view the following link which will show you a picture of a Malaise Trap and explain a little bit about how it works: It’s a Malaise Trap. The Malaise trap is an intercept trap which is very good at collecting flying insects. The trap itself looks somewhat like a tent, however, it has a mesh panel running down the centre. Once insects fly into the trap, they realize that they cannot keep going forward and in an attempt to get around the barrier they are funneled up to the top of the trap. At the top there is a hole which leads into a bottle which has ethanol in it. The insects will fall into the liquid (ethanol) which preserves them and will not survive. After you have the trap set up for 2 weeks at your school, the bottles full of insects are then sent back to BIO to be DNA barcoded. This means that we are able to extract DNA from the specimens and discover what species they are! We will then issue your school a report of the insect biodiversity found in your schoolyard!

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