Managing our Community Wildlife

My class consists of all boys who are very interested in hunting, fishing and wildlife. They would like to help with the conservation of wildlife in our area. Through discussions with my class, we have come up with the following framework for our project.
- Research wildlife in the area, identify which species are at risk and what we can do to help them
- Depending on where the greatest need is, we would build items to help with the conservation of that species (i.e. nesting boxes, platforms, roosts, feeders, bat boxes, toad slabs, etc)
-we would distribute / install items and then engage in regular maintenance of these items to assess and reflect on how they are working

Mise à jour (6 juin 2011)

We had a guest speaker come from the Conservation Authority to talk to us about trees and animals in the area. She also brought with her some local species of trees that we planted on the school yard. Each student created a Power Point Presentation regarding a local wild animal that they were interested in. After much research on local species and their endangerment, my class decided that we should build bat boxes to help protect little brown bats in our area. This has been a particularly hard spring for them, with the lack of heat to produce mosquitoes. We partnered with the local high schools wood shop program to build bat boxes which will be installed on the school grounds.

We are looking forward to more activities in the next three weeks!

Mise à jour (23 juin 2011)

After a tour of the local fish hatchery, my students wondered how they could help 'bring back the salmon' to our local waters. We did some research and joined with the Sydenham Sportsmen's Association to plan a classroom hatchery. We have been busy researching and purchasing equipment for our hatchery program and can't wait for the arrival of our eggs in the Fall!