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Up close and personal with nature

Students at Edgewood Elementary School got a chance to see what kind of wildlife was living near them.
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A photo of a deer

For the last month, teacher Erika Momeyer and the K-3 class at Edgewood Elementary School has been learning more about the nature and wildlife near the school with the help of modern technology.

Through grants from BC Hydro’s Community Champions program, and the Canadian Wildlife Federation, Momyer has purchased two wildlife cameras, and the class has set them up in the woods to help observe nearby wildlife.

“I’ve had the idea in my head for a while, but trying to get the equipment was a bit of a challenge,” said Momeyer. “Once we got that grant money, it just really opened up the possibilities.”

The class has been doing outdoor learning projects for several years, but this is the first time they’ve done something like this.

Before setting up the cameras, Momeyer said students asked wonder questions, such as wondering what they might discover, and what the reaction from local wildlife would be.

“Some were wondering if they would capture pictures of predator/prey activity going on, like a wolf eating a rabbit.”

Their questions act as a guide in determining where to place the camera.

Each week, two students choose the location for the camera. The memory card from the camera is retrieved and the photos are downloaded, and new students choose the next location.

Because of the risk for theft, the location of the cameras are not given out.

Students have been very excited over the project.

“Last week we got several deer, and one of the neighbourhood dogs, and the kids were just thrilled with that,” said Momeyer. “We’ve also had pictures of nothing that we could see, but it’s been neat to see the kids try to come up with explanations, like was it the wind, was it something coming by really fast, was it snow dropping off the trees?”

The project is going to morph as it goes along. A lot of it is going to be driven by the students.

Momeyer would like to do some kind of action project to go along with this one, but she’s not sure what that is just yet.

I’m not quite sure what that would be, whether it’s building bird houses, or bat boxes, or writing an informative brochure and writing about the wildlife we’ve seen. We’ve already done a bit of picking up garbage in the area. We’ll kind of just see as we go what sparks the students’ interest.”