Earthwatch teacher video

The three other teachers, Roslyn the volunteer and I made a video about our Earthwatch experience.
I hope you like it!!!

click to watch video

survival skills Friday 4-25-08

mink footprint



me learning to make a fire during survial skills practice


Friday was a wrap up day. We checked the images on our camera traps and found nothing. :(
All of the food that we put out as bait was gone but there were no images. All we can figure is that there were some very smart animals out there.

Survival skills was fun. First Chris instructed us on how to survive if you are lost or stranded away from people--PLAN (acronym). Protect yourself, know your location, acquisition (obtain water & food if necessary), finally navigation (find your way to a stream if possible since that is where most civilizations are built).



The latter part of the afternoon was spent walking along the beach. We were given an environmental impact assessment assignment enabling us to utilize the information we had gained in the previous two weeks. This had been done recently by a team of professionals but the data was not in yet so this allowed us to draw our own conclusions.
Our assignment was to transecting skills to cover the area and look for evidence of animals (mammals mostly). Evidence would be burrows (where the sleep or hide), footprints, feeding signs (for example: shells in a pile or carcasses), scat, skulls, or an actual sighting on an animal.
The area was quite large--bigger than the entire MMS campus (including the baseball field and the grassy areas near the car dealership). Composed of grassland, ocean, beach, lagoon, pond, and rocks, the area was a little overwhelming for the five of us. The wind made the temperature feel even colder. Without the wind, it was in the 30s. With the big gusts of wind provided by the ocean, we were freezing (and nearly falling over).


We spent about 2 1/2 hours combing the area and found several burrows, feeding signs, and scat (fox and coyote mostly).


The assessment was to determine if building an oil refinery would impact wildlife in the immediate area. Because we found many signs of wildlife, we determined that it would be detrimental (harmful).

I have really enjoyed my fellowship and am amazed at the amount of information I learned. Details, so small, really filled in gaps and formed connections for me. I can't wait to share more with you guys!!!

Thursday, 4-24-08

Today was our last day out in the field. Like last week, it was raining and cold. When we're bringing in the traps we first walk and check all the traps. ATVs can't be used for two main reasons: the trees are too close together and there are too many boulders. If any of our traps are closed, that tells us that an animal most likely is in the trap. We carry the closed traps back to our meeting spot and wait for everyone to return. Then we take turns opening our traps. We open the traps in a bag to make sure the animal doesn't get out.
Today I caught two voles. We haven't had much luck at our new location.
Our previous location (Cook's Lake) is a more remote, country-type location. Our current location is still not in a city but there are a few houses around. The house lots are 15-20 acres per home (unlike our homes which usually have less than one acre each). In total, there might be 10 houses in a very large area. Where we were working, there were no houses and there were none within sight (or close walking distance).
The disappointment showed as we checked our traps. We all were a little disappointed because we had all caught voles but we all wanted lemmings or flying squirrels, or mice. As the last trap was opened, the animal came out of the bag and we could immediately tell it wasn't a vole. It was a rock lemming!!!!! We had finally caught one.
We later learned (from Chris, one of the scientists) that rock lemmings and rock voles are the same animal. Since we had been catching red backed voles, we determined that we would call it a rock lemming (since it really is one).


My question/comment for you...Compare and contrast East Port Medway (current location) with Cook's Lake. I've given you a lot of information in my blogs and videos. Use this information to help you form your ideas. Make sure to include the following information in your answer:
1) Describe the habitats we surveyed/investigated(use as many adjectives as you can)
2) tell me your ideas on what makes a good habitat for small mammals
3) Why you think we aren't trapping the small animals I thought we would see (keep in mind that only bears, groundhogs, and bats hibernate here)
4) Do you think any of this is because of climate change (NOT the greenhouse effect or greenhouse gases)? Why or why not?


Tomorrow we're doing a survival course. Apparently we will be outside for this exercise. I think it will be about trapping animals for survial purposes (eating & other survival skills). We were supposed to do it today but our van broke down and the weather was not good for being outside

Tomorrow we were supposed to go to a national park and do a scat quadrat but with the van broken we won't be able to go. We will spend time on the beach walking around looking for otter scat.



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Kejimkujic National Park

 

Here is a photo collage of Kejimkujic National Park.

notice the porcupine in the tree.

picture collage

 

We

Wednesday 4-23-08

Hi guys!

I have some information for you guys. We had a lecture tonight on the history of Nova Scotia--starting with 4.7 billion years ago. I thought of you guys because we talked a little big about the rock cycle. I hate that I missed that unit but I know you got through it alright without me.
With me here, you're sort of learning two things at once! Bonus!!!!

Last night it rained lightly. That meant that the ground was damp this morning when we went out to check our traps. When we check our traps, we walk up to each trap and check to see if the door has shut. If it is shut, we collect the trap (pick it up) and carry it back to the meeting area. If the door is open, we leave it.
Since we check the traps twice a day, sometimes animals go in the trap during the day and sometimes they go in at night. If they go in after we have checked them in the afternoon, they have to stay quite a while. You'll have to read my comment about it in one of the posts. I did answer that question with more detail.
The animals actually go in the trap because they are curious. As you've noticed, some may not have very good short term memories because we recapture them. They also may also be desperately hungry for our food.

After we checked our traps, we went and did some map coordinates. You have learned longitude and latitude in Social Studies. We used a GPS device to tell us the coordinates so we could make a map of the area we're studying. We had to be very specific about where we were--writing detailed notes about what the area looked like. Think about describing the bus circle parking lot. If you have to tell about each parking space you could easily run out of new words to describe them!!!

We cleared more trails today. This means that we were on a piece of heavily wooded land and we were clearing a path so that there was nothing. My question for you is...
if we are clearing land (including chopping down some--but not many--trees), how can this benefit the environment and our goal? Before you answer, I want you to remember what our goal is (why do you think we are trapping mammals and weighing them). Think about the uses of the trail and the possible benefits along with the possible disadvantages.
This one is tough so you will need to read each other's replies to help you. If you post something and then read someone else's reply and change your mind about your answer, it is ok to re-post.



We saw a beaver last night. Here is a video of it.

Here is a camera trap video.

I show you part of the field where I'm putting traps.

Tuesday 4-22

Today is Earth Day!
I want all of you to understand the importance and significance of what this day represents. There are so many wonderful resources available to us and we don’t appreciate them or try to protect them.
Our world has two types of people—those who have chosen to do something to protect the earth & our environment (animals, nature, resources to name a few) and those who have chosen to hurt the environment. By doing nothing, many people are choosing the latter choice.
I want you to think about what people do to help the earth and our environment. In your post, tell me three things:
1) Give me three different ways people are helping the environment. You might have to do a little research if you can’t think of any.
2) Give me three different ways people are hurting the environment. You might have to do a little research for this one too.
3) What type of person do you think you are? What type of person do you want to be?
Are you someone who wants to help the environment or do you want to do nothing?

Today we returned to East Port Medway. We checked our small mammal traps and did another field transect. Remember that a field transect is where we look for field signs (evidence) of animals. We baited our camera traps—threw scraps of food near them cameras to try to lure animals in front of them. We won’t be able to see the pictures until Friday so I won’t have any idea if we caught any animals.

Just to remind you: we are trapping small mammals only. We only have two types of traps: camera traps and small mammal traps. The small mammal traps are shown on the videos. I show you how it works and what it looks like. Only small mammals can fit in them—gerbil or hamster size. A guinea pig or rat would not fit—it would be too big.

Tomorrow we will do a little more of the same.

Several of you have asked, so here is a schedule of what my normal day looks like:
6:00 – 7:00am I wake up and run for an hour
8:00am breakfast & blog update
8:45—leave for work in the field
9:30-12:30 work in the field
Check traps in the morning
Collect poo (we have to do 5 different areas each time we check for it)
Field transect
12:30-1:30pm lunch
1:30-4:00 work in the field
Collect poo (we have to do 5 different areas each time we check for it)
Field transect
Check traps before we leave
4:45-7:00 return home. This time varies depending on where we are working
7:30pm dinner
8:45-11:00pm upload pictures & videos from camera and work on blog. Believe it or not, the pictures and videos take a long time


VIDEO LINKS:
1) porcupine poo--I found this as I was setting my traps

2) camera trap--I show you what it looks like & explain what it does and then I show you one of the traps we set

3) beaver swimming!!!

4) setting out traps--I show you one of the fields that I walk through