It was not the most auspicious result for MC Knoll Grade 5 students participating in a nationwide bug collection project.
The local effort was part of a Biodiversity Institute of Ontario (BIO) project cataloguing Canadian insects from coast to coast. The project, now in its third year has already identified more than 700 previously unknown species
Grade 5 teacher Susan Muir said the class collected approximately 200 specimens of insects over the three-week duration of the project. Although slightly disappointed, she said weather had been a factor and not just for MC Knoll, but across the country.
In fact, BIO extended the collection by a week because the first week was so cold pretty much across the country. The third week was not much better, however.
Citizen science is a long-standing tradition in which scientists get widespread volunteer labour and participants get to experience what it is like to do scientific research.
Muir said it is an invaluable learning experience for students and they were thrilled to be chosen along with 65 other Canadian schools to be part of the project.
“I think when the kids can have a hands on approach to learning, to learn about biodiversity by actually examining the insects and examining the insects across Canada is so much better than just reading about biodiversity,” she said.
Three weeks ago the students set up their malaise trap, basically a tent with no sides that funnels flying insects up into a collection bottle filled with formaldehyde.
On May 8, the students packed up the trap and packaged up their specimen bottles to ship back to Guelph where their insects will be DNA-barcoded.
Muir expects the results will be returned to them within a couple of weeks. She said most of the specimens looked like tiny mosquitoes, but their were several that raised a lot of curiosity. The students are hoping one of their bugs will be a new species.
