May 28th, 2015
Spring is pond study season at our Outdoor and Environmental Education Centres. Grade 4’s study Habitats and Communities; Grade 7, Interactions Within Ecology; and for Grade 9 it’s Aquatic Ecology.
Recently Miss Siertsma’s Grade 4 class from Elgin Street P.S. came to visit me for just such an adventure. Afterwards they wrote thank-you letters and shared them with me via their GAFE (Google Apps For Education) accounts, and then created a blog post about their experiences. Well done everyone, and thank you for your efforts! Miss Siertsma has given permission to share their work via our blog, so here’s what they had to say:
Pond Trip
May 25th, 2015(A collaborative effort by P3 students)
On Monday, May 11, we went on a pond trip to Countryside Camp. We met Mr. Rasberry who told us that there are currently about 700 different species that are endangered in Canada. He showed us part of a Blanding’s Turtle’s shell and told us that it has a long, yellow neck. (We already knew that because we had read the book Samuel’s Most Important Message, which is a book about a Blanding’s Turtle whose habitat was getting destroyed.) He told us what you need for a healthy habitat: food, water, space and shelter. Next, we observed Mr. Rasberry demonstrate how to use a dip net to catch pond creatures by putting the net on its side and then dipping it up and down in the plants at the water’s edge. Then we tried out the equipment ourselves in groups around the pond. We discovered crayfish, tadpoles, leeches, dragonfly nymphs, catfish, mud minnows, giant water beetle, lesser water bug, water spiders and damselfly nymphs. We also caught a blood worm and snail eggs attached to a stick, as well as plenty of algae. One person caught a leopard frog, but let it go. We placed the creatures that we had caught in water in bins and then shared them with the other groups. When we walked around looking at the bins, we noticed similarities between bins. Each group had snails, nymphs and algae and most had lesser water bugs. Mr. Rasberry is extremely knowledgeable and shared a lot of information with us! Everyone had tons of fun catching creatures and learning about a pond habitat. We would like to say a special thanks to the parents who came with us: Ms. Lisa, Ms. Chelsea, Ms. Jacqueline, Mrs. Kamerman, Mrs. Martinez and Ms. Neika.
This is a male lesser water bug with eggs on its back. The female lays the eggs on the male’s back.
This is a leech… but it didn’t suck any blood (surprisingly)!
On this tracking sheet, we circled the creatures that we caught. We also recorded the water and air temperatures.
In the top right is a crayfish and in the bottom left is a tadpole.
This is how you use the dip net.
These photos show how we had to dig through the mud, leaves, etc. to find creatures.