My (Mis)adventures at a Biodiversity Audit

Stale pastries, a couple of long bones, a snake skin, a banana...just some of the evidence on one particular table of people who had arrived at 3 p.m. the previous afternoon, camped overnight, and collected specimens for this year's Bio Blitz.  This year, the Rhode Island Natural History Survey took place at Kenyon Crossroads Preserve, Collins Road, Hopkinton, RI.  This area has woods, meadows, farm, a vernal pool, and streams.  

The tables beneath the large tent that serve as the "Science Center" are arranged by teams: "Litter Bugs" search through leaf litter and pass on fauna they find to others with microscopes and books.  Paper plates hold mushroom samples, their identity written in common tongue or sometimes Latin on the plates themselves.  I can't even begin to describe the diversity in the mosses alone.  So much wonderful texture!  Then there was the lichen table, the mammals, reptiles, mollusks, fish...  I spoke to a very pleasant woman examining squat, fat, bug-like creatures in a petri dish half-full of water who specialized in dragonfly nymphs.

Multitudes of moss!

Looking through leaf litter.

Dragonfly nymphs!

Specimens from the "Fun Guy" team!

There were also artistic teams: Writers and artists.  People posted quick watercolor sketches or got in depth with colored pencils and a microscope.  The writers chatted with each other.  

I was given a luna moth by a coworker and just ordered my insect pins and a shadow box to better display my collection.  These are beautiful.  Just the variety in the sphinx moths alone... I need to get a Peterson Moth Guide!  

An artist at work.

Funny how the travel mug matches the interest.

Note again the matching container. :)

       

I wanted to stay and learn more, but I wanted to explore too.  I set off on a trail with my map, water, camera, notebook, bug catcher, Peterson Insect Guide, etc. and started walking.  I was told the trail would take about 2 hours.  Since I stopped so often to take pictures, I'm not sure how far I travelled.  I walked for about 4 hours.  (More on that later.)

Lichen colonizes the tree trunk rubbed and gnawed bare of its bark by passing deer.

  

A portal, perhaps?

Landing pad?

Beware of spider!

 

A lone pine seedling amidst the lilies.

Who made such windows and doors?

Rooms to let.

                         

Honeymoon Suite

Location, location!

Gnarly, dude!

Faery hill.

                

I imagined every hole, nook, and tunnel as a faery abode.  Some were tiny homes, some condos or hotels.  One spired dead stump was a goblin's castle.

As heavy droplets fell, the leaves on the ground jumped up.  With umbrella in hand, it was hard not to think of myself as Totoro, laughing at the rain.  

 

    

I travelled down many trails, the map of little sense to me.  When I came to the horses I was told about and what looked like a main road, I decided to head back.  I checked my GPS for the quickest route, but it only gave me a compass pointer toward the nearest road, sending me in a 20 minute circle stomping down thorny vines and climbing over rock walls.  Also during that 20 minutes, whatever hadn't gotten wet from walking through ostrich ferns got soaked by a now heavy rain pour.  Once I was back at the farm, I figured following the farm road would lead somewhere, so I took it.  GPS said it would be an hour walk to camp; an hour, that is, once I was on an actual road.  Still, there was much to see.  

  

  

  

Underside of tree felled by storm.

Deer tracks!

  

A very patient American toad allowed me to fumble one-handed with my camera before I let him go.

At the Science Center tent, I was enthralled by all the experts inspecting their finds, not being able to name a single moss and very few mushrooms.  But now I was walking along meadows with red-winged blackbirds and I could name nearly every plant I saw.  This may be the group I align with next year, to collect wild-flowers and herbs, press them into pages like Emily Dickenson, write poems, paint, and draw.  I have very little documentation of this part of the trip as it was too wet to use my Canon Rebel and my phone camera kept clouding up.  (In fact, I had to use a hair dryer the next day to dry out the charger port so it would charge again.  MacGyver moment.)

A face of fungus greets me,

Who peeled this bark, and why?

I walked over 4 miles, I know that much.  At one point, I passed another farm with what looked like cloned Clydesdale horses.  They stood alert looking at me as I fumbled to wipe off my phone yet again.  I took their photo.  One nodded at me.  I nodded back and went on my way.

Wildflowers through a wet lens.

Marsh near a farm.  Two red-winged blackbirds were enjoying it.

A stare and a nod.

A somewhat rare find.

So, my introduction to Bio Blitz did not go as planned, but no moment was wasted.  I would advise bringing a buddy.  Mine was hard at work on the chicken coop.  Still, despite the parts that were beyond my control, it felt good to take my time and let nature lead me.  We should all make time to do this.

Art and Science?

Insect-themed neo-Art-Nouveau by Stephanie Young.

By now, most people have at least heard of STEM to STEAM.  But what does it mean?  Science, Technology, Engineering, and Art!  It's not enough to observe, identify, hypothesize, but to DO.  In a lesson I recently developed, my second graders are building bug houses.  As the "architects", they must consider the needs of their client(s).  I narrowed it down to three for them, with brief mention of a few others.

Basically, each student is getting a $1 mini crate I got off the Michael's website and painted green with exterior paint and primer.  They then have to gather materials from home that they think will be good for their resident: twigs, leaves, bark, chunks of wood, cardboard, packing materials, etc.  I told them no rocks and to stay away from poison ivy.  All this was reiterated in their take-home instructions.

Also in the instructions were the needs of several insects.  Lady bugs often hibernate in small spaces in logs, leaf litter, dead trees, people's attics even.  They prefer horizontal openings.  (Butterflies, by contrast, need vertical openings to accommodate their wings, but I told them their crate would be too small for the space they needed to perch.  We wanted ladybugs to move in to eat the aphid pests.  The new guy I introduced them to was the lacewing.  It also eats aphids but likes to reside in dry straw.  Solitary bees, contrary to popular belief, do NOT live in hives, but hollow reeds, clumps of tall grass, holes on logs or living trees, even underground.  Since giving them this assignment, I discovered one bee that does use rocks (specifically, genus  Dianthidium in the Megachilid or leaf cutter Family uses pebbles and mud) to build its house and another (the wool carder Anthidium, also a Megachilid) that likes soft, fuzzy plants to line its nest.  They're still not getting rocks, but I'll add mullein leaves to the mix.  (I frequently see wool carders in the summer,  hovering around my rose campion, a fuzzy plant like lamb's quarters but with pink, dianthus-like flowers.  They are very fast and territorial, guarding their flowers, and very fun to watch.  Like all bees, males have no stingers.)

Building day arrives.  All but two of the kids brought in items last-minute.  Only two kids brought rocks, which I promptly removed.  I separated all the items into separate boxes: Recently living plant material (flowers and grass clippings), dry straw, twigs, sticks, bark, cardboard tubes, paper packing materials, pine cones, pussy willows, craft sticks, etc.   (Several orders of paint came in that week so I had uniform boxes.)  Originally I was going to cut up bamboo, but it was too much to do and I'm working with a fractured thumb.  We had done a lot with paper manipulation and I showed them how to roll tubes.  Their crate had to contain the objects and they were not allowed glue.  Nothing could fall out, not even hay.  The spaces in the crate did allow them to put craft sticks across, which many did, creating "floors".  When complete, they will place their bug condos outside and wait to see who moves in.

I'll admit that in the last few weeks of school the kids get rambunctious and I get less patient.  But I sent them one table at a time, with assurances they would be allowed to go back, to gather building materials for their bug condo.  For the next 30 minutes, every kid was engaged, no one fought or argued, there was plenty to go around, and one student who gets frustrated when his project doesn't look like mine said it was the best day ever!  They will continue work tomorrow and I will add more pictures to this post.  

Which brings me to NGSS, or Next Generation Science Standards.  In the kindergarten to second grade Engineering, Technology, and Science (ETS) Standard, students should:

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

K-2-ETS1-1.	Ask questions, make observations, and gather information about a situation people want to change to define a simple problem that can be solved through the development of a new or improved object or tool.
K-2-ETS1-2.	Develop a simple sketch, drawing, or physical model to illustrate how the shape of an object helps it function as needed to solve a given problem.
K-2-ETS1-3.	Analyze data from tests of two objects designed to solve the same problem to compare the strengths and weaknesses of how each performs. Which I believe we are doing!