Sept 2012, by Tomomi Suwa
The sixth graders from the Gull Lake Middle School took advantage of this beautiful fall weather and spent some time outdoors at the BEST plots. To learn about differences in invertebrate diversity in different habitats, students set up two types of traps (sticky traps and pitfall traps) in the BEST plots, right outside their building. One week later, they collected the traps and tried to identify and count the invertebrates they found. In the sticky traps, they caught many types of flies and wasps and even grasshoppers and ladybugs. In the pitfall traps, they found spiders, beetles, and other types of crawling invertebrate species. Some students were a little scared to watch the dead creatures at first, but most of them got really excited to find so many different kinds of invertebrates in the trap.
We plan to continue to spending time outdoors as much as we can at the BEST plots and collect data on plant diversity and productivity as well as soil texture and chemistry. I look forward to working with the energetic and enthusiastic middle school students at Gull Lake middle school!