Fun (and Learning) in the Forest!

We had a wonderful morning exploring the forest and the creek today at the Lynn Valley Ecology Centre. I would like to thank the 6 parents and one grandparent who drove and helped support the kids during the activities. It was so great to have you all along, we certainly couldn't have attended this field trip without you! Thank you!

Here we are waiting to go inside the Ecology Centre.

We had 5 minutes to explore the exhibits.

Then we met Michelle and Deb and they taught us a little bit about the temperate rain forest and some creatures who are important to this ecosystem.

We split into two groups as we headed out into the forest. Many of the pictures here are of one group (because that was the group that I was with), some of the parents in the other group sent photos to me and I have included them here too (thanks to those parents!).

We found all kinds of interesting things along the way....we think this might be slug waste.

This is the other group on their way.

We stopped at the pollinator garden and learned a little bit about hummingbirds.

We saw a woodpecker hole and learned about their nesting practices.

Woodbug

we learned about lichen

These are the creatures that we collected as we explored the creek. This is a mayfly larva.

a stonefly larva

We each got a container of creek water and we went to the creek edge to pick up rocks and "swish" them in our water to see if any of these creatures came off. 

and they did!

Deb counted what we found and kept a record.

then we saw the other group heading to the creek edge

They were about to begin the same activity (they had just been exploring the forest)

We took the temperature of the water, it was 10 degrees.

and the temperature of the air, it was 16 degrees.

we found a worm

then we went into the forest (the other group had just been here before us)

We lifted up objects on the ground to see what we could find underneath.

So beautiful!

then we went inside the Ecology Centre and put some of our findings under a very high powered microscope projector, this is Michelle's finger.

Here are some of the things that we found in the creek.

Here are photos from the other group.

They went on the Suspension Bridge (my group ran out of time and it was REALLY busy when we got there, so we didn't go across the bridge).

What a great day! This class was amazing today. It was a pleasure to take them out into the community. I was so proud of all of them!