Last Day! See You Soon!

My last full day here in Nova Scotia was another fun filled day of learning and research. We spent the morning learning about outdoor survival and building small mammal traps. Unfortunately my awesome strength was a bit too much for the spruce tree we were using to set the trap.

We then spent a couple of cold and windy hours walking along the Cherry Hill beach habitat testing our field sign skills. We saw a number of great things such as piping plover, an endangered bird. We also saw a number of awesome tracks on the beach sand such as the mink and raccoon.

After dinner we went bat detecting. Although it was too cold to see any bats we learned a lot about how to detect bats using audio frequency waves.

What an exciting past 2 weeks! I am so happy to have been able to share my experience with you all and am excited to get back to STMA to share all I’ve learned. Thank you for being such great classes to communicate with. See you at school!!

Final Trapping Day-Big Surprise!

Well, I am nearing the end of my fantastic adventure here in Nova Scotia. While I am sad to leave, I am excited to see you all again back home! Since today was our last day working at East Port Medway we needed to take our traps out. When we did, we found an awesome surprise waiting for us… a rock lemming!

The rock lemming is an animal that looks like a vole, but is bigger and has larger claws to help them walk on the rocks. The cool part about finding a rock lemming is that scientists and researchers have said that there are NO rock lemming in Nova Scotia!! Now that we’ve caught one, our head researchers will try to catch more throughout the summer to gather data on them. At the end of the summer, they will report their findings to the Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute (MTRI) which basically the government’s research center in Nova Scotia. With their research they will hopefully get the rock lemming recorded as a species of Nova Scotia. Although it might not seem like a big deal to find such a small animal, these small findings can tell people a lot about the environment and how it is changing overtime. Also, remember that small animals are at the base of the food chain and eventually effect larger animals and even humans! Their habitats and numbers are also a good indicator of climate change.

After we packed our traps, we headed back to the trail we started yesterday and finished it! Hopefully this will be a great addition to the new research sight. We then came back to the house to call the schools and have an outdoor survival crash course. Tonight we’re going to search for bats along the lakes and ponds by our house. Since bats like eating mosquitoes and other insects, boggy areas are the best place to search for bats. I'll be sure to post my findings.

Traps and Scat and Rocks... OH MY!!

Wow, today was a jam packed day! First thing in the morning we checked our traps to find a few more voles than yesterday although not as many as our last sight.


We then learned about GPS mapping and took the coordinates of the perimeter of our area and the trail we made yesterday. After lunch we baited our camera traps then we set out to search for scat in order to get a rough estimate of how many deer and snowshoe hare are at East Port Medway. (Watch the videos below to see more about searching for scat and about the camera traps we are using).

Challenge:
1. Name 3 reasons why you think using a camera traps are beneficial in researching animals.
2. Name 3 problems we face when using camera traps.

After baiting our traps we spend the rest of the afternoon clearing another trail on the property to be used for future Earthwatch teams and research. It was a lot of work, but we were able to create a very nice trail!

Finally our day ended with a geological talk from Dr. Newman. He started the talk by giving us a history of the earth starting 4.7 billion years ago!!! The most interesting thing I learned was about the formation of the Bay of Fundy. The Bay of Fundy is the body of water forming the western border of the Nova Scotia peninsula. During the most recent ice age the bay formed out of a fault line that almost cut Nova Scotia off of North America (or what scientists call Laurentia) and attached it to what is present day Europe (called Baltica by scientists). However a strong Atlantic fault developed keeping Nova Scotia a part of North America but leaving a deep cut in the ocean floor now known as the Bay of Fundy. The depth of the bay attracts many different species of whales, dolphins and porpoises in the summer months. It is also home to the highest tides in the world!

To Mr. J’s classes: Thanks for the awesome questions!

3rd hour: The tree with me in the picture is a Hemlock. Nova Scotia was once covered with these trees but throughout the 1700’s and 1800’s and early 1900’s the forestry industry clear cut almost all of the Hemlock. Clear cutting forever changed the hemlock’s ability to grow because it creates the acidic soil it needs to grow through its falling needles. When the trees were clear cut other faster growing trees such as the spruce and fur (balsam fur) came and blocked out re-development of the hemlock. The roots can grow under over the rock only if the rock is covered in moss (making the soil acidic).

4th hour: Probably the most interesting animal I’ve seen so far is the beaver last night. It was awesome to see the animal up close. Check out the video if you haven’t yet. Tomorrow night we’re going bat watching however, and I’m excited to see more of the bat’s habitat.
5th hour: I’m not afraid of getting rabies, because rabies doesn’t exist here in Nova Scotia! Rabies is actually a disease that is more prevalent in the warmer climates. Because of the shorter summers in Canada, the strain hasn’t been able to survive well here and in other northern areas. However, rabies might soon be a good indication of climate change. As our climate gets warmer, there maybe more cases of rabies in the northern climates.

6th hour: We actually set a different type of trap at our new sight called a camera trap which allows us to capture larger animals on film. (watch the video above for more information on the camera traps). However, our researchers have been catching and researching badgers in England for more than a decade. They have similar, but larger traps that don’t harm the animals. I haven’t seen any bear yet, but there has been one animal that has stopped me in my tracks… and that is the snake. Although there are no poisonous snakes here in Nova Scotia I’ve never really liked snakes. But I’m slowly getting over my fear.

Beaver Watching!

We saw beaver!
What a great way to end our Earth Day! This evening we set out to some beaver lodges about a half mile from where we’re staying. Take a look at the video and pictures.

The American Beaver is North America’s largest rodent. You can identify a beaver swimming because you can see both the head and part of the body when it swims. It has a large flattened tail that it uses as a rudder for swimming and stores fat for the winter. Another interesting fact about the beaver’s tail is when they get scared or want to ward off other animals they slap their tail on the water making a loud shot gun like sound. We were fortunate to have the beaver swim very close to us and we didn't get “slapped”!

Happy Earth Day!!

Happy Earth Day everyone!
I hope you all enjoyed your Earth Day and took sometime yesterday or today to think about some of your impacts on the environment or at least got outdoors to enjoy the natural wonders of our beautiful world!! We definitely got a chance to explore the environment of East Port Medway today! After checking our traps in the morning, we spent sometime creating a trail through the woods and surverying the land to make a map. (Watch the video below to find out more about maps at our sight.)

Maps are extremely important to many professions all around the world. There are also many different maps people use to show or find important information. As you learned in the video, we are helping to create a detailed map of East Port Medway for volunteers (like me) to use so we don’t get lost. In addition to practical uses of the map, we're working to create more trails to add on the map as well as use those trails to identify habitat locations such as forest areas, clearings, rock fields, and eventually active animal dens. Animal habitats, like the one we are creating, can take years to finish (up to 15 years for this map) and need to be updated at least once a year. Since we are the first research team at East Port Medway we are at the beginning stages of map making. Today we laid out the perimeters and created trails to add to the map.

Challenge:
1. Name at least 5 jobs that rely on maps.
2. Name at least 3 reasons why having a detailed map of a research area is important.
3. Why do you think it will take 15 years to create a detailed map?

To my responsive hour!
Thanks so much for all of your wonderful comments… you ROCK!! There were a lot of questions about some of the other animals I’ve seen besides porcupine, mice and voles. Although we haven’t yet seen any bear or moose, we are going beaver watching tonight and bat calling tomorrow night. Hopefully I’ll see a lot more animals and will be sure to get pictures to show you! On the other hand we have seen a number of white-tailed dear, snowshoe hare, muskrat, and snakes. We’ve also seen many signs of coyote and fox and I have a feeling I’ll be running into one soon :)
As far as trapping the animals, we are hoping to catch some chipmunk, flying squirrel, and rock lemming at this sight. We caught 1 vole today, however the weather is supposed to get cooler throughout the night which tends to bring more animals to the traps. Fingers crossed for tomorrow!!

P.S. Tanner M. ~ There will be much more on scat tomorrow!!

Monday, Back to Work!!

Hey everyone, after a nice weekend seeing the sights of Halifax and Kejimkujik National Park we’re back working hard at our new sight called East Port Medway where we’ll set mice and vole traps, as well as a different type of trap called a camera trap. We’ll also do a number of scat quadrants to see how many larger mammals are in the area such as deer, snowshoe hare, porcupine, and coyote. I can tell this is going to be a busy and exciting week so make sure you’re staying up-to-date with the challenges!!

History of the Water Vole: Before I tell you about our new sight I want to give you a little background information on the water vole. The water vole was a very common animal in England about 20 years ago. When people walked near bodies of water they frequently heard plopping sounds of the water vole jumping in and out of the water. Within the last couple of years however, people started to notice the absence of water vole signs. More scientists started to investigate and found the water vole to be virtually extinct! More studies were done and field biologists came to the conclusion that increased water pollution and the introduction of the American mink lead to the destruction of the water vole’s habitat therefore killing the animal. But what had people and scientists more alarmed was that an entire species virtually disappeared in under 20 years almost completely undetected. Keep this information in mind as you read the rest of this entry.

East Port Medway is actually a brand new sight that has not been surveyed or researched. It is about 10 miles south of our residence at Cherry Hill and next to the land of Dr. Newman and Dr. Buesching. Studying this area provides our researchers with a new climate. Our previous sight at Cook’s Lake was about 40 miles from the coast while East Port Medway borders the Ocean.

Challenge:
Name 2 ways that being near a coast affects climate and possibly the animals living there.
Why do you think scientists would want 2 areas to gather information from?

With its coastal climate, East Port Medway provides us with a chance to observe and trap different types of animals such as the flying squirrel and rock lemming. This sight is also in between an area that is expected to significantly develop with new homes in the next 5 years.

Challenge:
Why do you think it’s important to study an area before it is developed and continue studying the same area during and after a development boom? (hint… refer back the information on the water vole of your are stuck)

Note on Comments: Thank you to those of you who are writing comments, I've really enjoyed them!! Also, please make sure you are writing your initials and the class hour so I know who sent them. One question from the comments what why I don't give the answers on my blog. That is a great question and the answer is because I will be collecting your journals to grade when I get back and will be going through the answers with you all :)
Thanks again for all of the great comments and keep up the great work!!

EEEEEKKK MATH!!! (and I thought mice were scary!)

“There is no Math in Science” (Says Mr. Payne…)
Of course we all know that there is a lot of math in science, social studies and even language arts. We found that out first hand today as we closed up our first research site at Cook’s Lake and calculated the estimate number of voles in the area. Researchers use data collected in one area to determine the estimate number of animals in a larger region. It’s important to gather these figures over a time to see how various conditions, such as climate change affect certain mammals.

Challenge 1: Why do you think studying small mammals such as mice and vole are important in determining the larger effects of climate change?

Math: We used a generally simple formula called Capture Mark Recapture (CMR) for determining the number of voles at Cook’s Lake. Since there were 5 of us on the expedition, each was in charge of setting 20 traps (1 row of ten in 2 plots). Each trap was set in a straight line 10 meters apart from each other making a 50x100 meter square area (1/2 hectare) on each side of the road. We used the formula: (N1xN2/R)M = P where N1 = the number of new captures on the last day; N2 = the number of recaptures; R = the number of recaptures; and M = the total marked population; and P= the total estimate number of voles in a ½ hectare.

Challenge 2: Find the total estimate number of mice in full hectares for plot A and plot B given the data we found:
Plot A Plot B
New Captures = 1 New Captures = 6
Raptures = 4 Recaptures = 2
Marked Population = 10 Marked Population = 4

Once you’ve found your answers in full hectares you can get a rough estimate of how many animals survive that specific area, but also an idea of how many are on the larger plot of land. Studying these numbers continuously over time has helped scientists immensely in studying the larger impact of global climate change and other factors affecting ecosystems.

Challenge 3: What specific things can scientists find out from studying the abundance of animals in a given area over time?

*** A final note, as we checked our traps for the final time at Cooks Lake and were in for a big surprise… mice! Check out the video for a sneak peak!