September 24th, 2012

Today the students from KCI participated in a pond study, which involves searching the bottom of a pond for bugs and other animals such as leaches and newts.

Mostly the kids have found waterboat men (an insect) and darner dragonfly nymphs. A few tadpoles were found as well as a horse leech. The leech will later be added to the aquarium at the centre. I will be completing several projects this semester including a leech key (a series of illustrations and descriptions of the various types of leeches found in our pond. It’s pretty cold here but surprisingly the water temperature is very close to the air temperature. It also doesn’t seem to be stopping anyone from participating. There aren’t many students who aren’t willing to pick up the animals or go in the pond and they all seem curious for the pond creatures. It’s nice to have an enthusiastic group. Not as many newts were found today as there were in past days-on Thursday a group found five in one part of the pond alone!

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All in all today was a great day and I think everyone had a good time. I think this group has learned a lot and is hopefully taking home some useful information and some good memories.

Ally Penwarden
Co-op student