Green Calgary & CPAWS Southern Alberta - Science for Young Citizens: Pollinators! (Grades 3-6)

all right hello everybody uh thank you so much for joining our session we're so excited to be here with you today to talk about citizen science and pollinators my name is grace i'm going to be the moderator for today uh we are just waiting for more people to join us right now and we're going to be starting at exactly 1 15 but just as people are arriving before we get started it would be wonderful to get to know you a little bit better uh so please if you would like to uh introduce yourself in the chat by telling us the last animal that you saw all right thank you so much and we'll see you at 1 15. okay so it is exactly 1 15 now so we're going to get started thank you so much everyone for joining us and we are just going to start off uh first with a message from maragondek welcome to the 33rd annual mayor's environment expo as we come together from around the city i would like to acknowledge that the calgary area where the bow and elbow rivers meet is a place of confluence where the sharing of ideas and opportunities naturally come together indigenous people were the original caretakers of this land and the first champions of environmental conservation this land is a home that we all share and it's vitally important that we protect our home our environment by working together what drives my optimism is seeing the innovation and commitment to climate action from all of you our students i will continue to amplify youth voices on the climate crisis and i look forward to hearing your ideas i hope this session sparks conversations and encourages all of us to take greater action in protecting our environment thank you all for participating wonderful welcome to the thrill thank you very much maragondek for those important words so my name is grace i'm the moderator here today and sherry if you're all set we are ready for you to start your presentation it is wonderful to be here thank you so much for the introduction grace um we are a we today you have two um very keen environmental voices here uh mine my name is sherry and i work for canadian parks and wilderness society southern alberta chapter or c-paws as we're known to our friends we're an environmental organization that works all across canada and tries to be the best lorax we can uh meaning we speak not only for the trees but for the birds the bees the butterflies and all the fun little bacteria all those wonderful ingredients that make up ecosystems and of course we are stronger together and i'd like to now hand it over to my partner um miss grace to introduce herself hi thank you sheri so as she said my name is grace and i work at green calgary which is an environmental charity right here in the city and what that means is that we care a lot about our environment and all of the different ways that we can keep it healthy so what we do is we go all over the city and get to provide education on the different ways that we can reduce our waste use less electricity and less water and also find other ways that we can keep the nature in our own backyard healthy and as sherry said we do this together so i absolutely love working alongside cpaws to get to deliver sessions like this one where we can talk to you about citizen science and all of the different amazing critters that live right here in our city so sherry is our presenter so i'll pass it right back to you sherry thanks very much thanks grace all right let's step outside shall we oh my goodness i feel better already um nature wow so much to take in and on that note i want to invite you to take this beautiful scene in i want you to tell us what you see and don't be shy this is the warm-up we want to know exactly what you're seeing because everyone has different perspectives and everyone has different eyes so please invite we invite you to add your comments into the chat this is our main communication function this afternoon we're going to be together for almost an hour so yeah please don't be shy uh we do engrace anything coming up i know there is a delay so excuse me as i get super excited and really keen to know what you all are seeing and and perceiving we're still waiting for some of our engagement to come in through the chat here sherry but i know that i'm already seeing some really interesting things in this photo there's some really beautiful colors that we're seeing on this rock i'm seeing a beautiful blue sky and i'm loving the mountains that i'm seeing in the background and let me just see here we have someone who's already said rocks we're seeing rocks for sure in our image speckled rocks very good descriptive words plants a rock with some orange moss type things and trees these are some of the answers that are coming in that's wonderful keep them coming everyone um we want you to think about nature as a gift giver um when you think about all that she does provide from the oxygen we breathe to the water we drink to uh the food we eat there's also the gifts of beauty to consider and um the gifts of curiosity um wow yeah i can't think of a better place to be curious than outside can you um your amazing observations any others you'd like to highlight grace oh let's see a lot of moss and plants and orange flowers and leaves and trees and someone even said a waterfall uh very good i'm loving the color and the descriptiveness that's coming in here fantastic and just to let you guys in on a little secret those beautiful splashes of of color are lichen and like it are one of my favorite plants uh plant phantom organisms um they're actually a symbiotic relationship between the rock and the air and produce oxygen but also do an important job in decomposing whatever they're lucky enough to land on so lycan l-i-c-h-e-n my favorite element of this picture but you saw what you saw and that's what makes it so so um so important that we recognize is the diversity of our viewpoints and they're all together better together so nature makes us scientists it makes us it evolves and allows us to observe come up with questions wonder why wonder what wonder when and that's essentially what scientists and the professional level are all about um there's nothing like nature to make you ask questions so today on top of being amazing wonderers amazing observers grace and i are about to um give you another title we're going to make us all together citizen scientists um it's incredible because this is something that we can all share no matter where you come from how old you are um what part of calgary you live in today together here we are citizen scientists your curious minds um is what grants you entitlement into this very pristine uh group of individuals so let's explore this idea of citizen scientists um the first question that might come to your mind is what is a citizen scientist or what is citizen science and it's a very lovely um simple and inclusive again um place to be basically it is a place where we look to the professional world of of science the biologists the chemists the physicists the conservation scientists and they have big jobs they have a lot of data to collect and they can't do it all by themselves i mean why why should they when they don't have to when they could lean on the shoulders of all of us we have beautiful ways of observing through our senses as you just showed us and it is all about togetherness and bringing these beautiful ideas um sensory observations uh thoughts and curiosities to the scientific community so basically in a nutshell it is citizens like you and i um like grace um like our mayor uh coming together and giving our data and our observations to scientists so that they can put those observations to work in their important professional ambitions it gives information to government to make good decision it helps us make rules and laws to protect animals it helps solve real world problems huge but small so wonderful and so inclusive so i bet you're wondering do you have what it takes to become a part of citizen science um i think you already know the answer by all the wonderful observations you've already given us so i'm going to ask you um to get a little active with our presentation now i'm wondering if you could please raise your right hand if you can take pictures so right hands in the air all right perfect thank you grace i can see you and i appreciate you showing showing up all right i feel like there's a lot of right hands in the air next where is your left hand right hand down if you can use a computer ooh yeah i see i'm feeling a lot of left hands all right why don't we put our left hand down and then i invite you to stand up if you can record information by drawing writing or typing i see grace moving back in her chair and standing up thank you grace and i feel very much together with all of you out there that are standing in person participation of this wonderful world of citizen science there you have it my friends you have all that you need in order to dive into this exciting world of citizen science now you're all warmed up too mind and body so please have a seat as we jump into the tools now it's very important for you to recognize that citizen science takes the tools of every day and puts them to use i actually took this picture of all the things that i generally carry around in my backpack when i go out exploring most of the things are out there that are in my backpack um are about self-care when i'm outside so you'll see my sunblock you'll see my water bottle i definitely almost always have snacks in my backpack my sunglasses are there um i'm curious if um you're looking at this picture i hope that you're seeing that what it takes to be a citizen scientist is not a million dollars most of these things i'm willing to bet are already in your backpack your classroom or at home i am so sure that many of these items are familiar with all of you you and your senses and amplifying your observations that i want to see if we can play a little game here i want you to stare at this picture of all the things that i use for citizen science i want you to stare so deeply i want you to make a mental picture of all the things here because in a moment i'm going to remove one of the items okay take it in take it in three two one oh through the magic of powerpoint i have removed one of the items in the chat my friends can you tell us which item was removed i know you're thinking hard i know some of you know right off the top of your heads i hope that you're seeing the idea of some literature and guides any ideas there grace anybody brave enough to say what things are saying someone said something on the backpack but not quite sure what hold on we have quite a few guesses here of people saying it was the apple what do you think sherry wonderful and thank you so much for participating everyone it's it's a real challenge because grace and i are so excited and there is a delay because we are live so forgive us as we're just like cannot wait to get your answer and you're absolutely right if you said the apple is missing my favorite snack for going outside and exploring all right that was so much fun let's do it one more time i'd like you to stare take it in all right here comes magically through the power gone what's missing now i will highlight while you're typing and we are receiving that i one of my favorite things to bring outside is books i love field guides you'll see i have a pond twitcher which is a fold out and then a big old book about rocky mountain birds um and then i love having a map i love maps they just let me explore my mind even when i'm not on the trail grace any any answers i'm telling you still waiting for them to come in sherry let's see guesses this one's a bit tricky blink and you'll miss it oh hold on sherry do you think it might be the magnifying glass oh did they get it they got it it was the magnifying glass and you'll notice that this is not a super fancy scientific professional grade magnifier it's from the dollar store um it's all about just allowing people to get closer and into nature and you know what if you don't have a magnifying glass you've got what you were born with um and this is just a way to amplify so use your senses if it's your sense of smell touch taste um there's nothing better than a snack enjoyed outside so on we go my friends because i bet you're wondering citizen science it sounds so fancy and brand new well it's not what i i'm willing to bet some of you are thinking my i wonder how far back citizen science goes it is true that we humans have been discovering and looking at nature since the very beginning indigenous indigenous people have been the stewards of our lands on treaty seven as the mayor i'm so lovely put in land acknowledgement since the beginning of time and so curiosity and question and observation has been a part of this landscape as far back as when the glaciers retreated and the first peoples our indigenous peoples came to be the winter count here is uh one of the first recorded methods of taking in what is seen and writing down and showing off and making record and going forward so this beautiful picture actually drawn on a hide is an example of a winter count a winter count is a method of taking observation as a community so the idea of community science so beautifully is represented by this particular winter count which is blackfoot it was interpreted by elder bull plume and missionary canon william hayes and the winter count here um is so fabulous i i have to tell you just looking at my notes that in some of the images you'll see um well i'm curious what you see as i tell you what is um what was interpreted i'd love to hear your interpretations of how you would look at these pictographs and maybe what they could represent in terms of natural phenomenon um happening in the blackfoot world dating back they believe into the 1800s and beyond um one element they that is said to be here is that berries stayed on the trees long into winter another observation is that there was hail and thunder in the winter that would be very interesting in other years the buffalo and the antelope got sick following an eclipse and strong winds were recorded grace any thoughts on what these images might be interpreted by our young audience oh not yet sherry but what i'm seeing myself is we have a very interesting spiral that goes around i like how we're moving through time as we're looking at this winter count we have uh from a grade three class they're saying that they're seeing weather on here as well i'm seeing lots of animals as well on this winter count wonderful perfect um some of the indigenous knowledge from winter counts is still being used today this is very important breakthrough science and indigenous science is the way to refer to it um two i'd seen the ability to take the indigenous perspective and western science perspectives and put them together is by far the strongest way that we can go forward in terms of taking care of this planet and winter counts provide a great example of a tool that we can use in understanding how climate change is impacting us today thanks everybody so tools nowadays um from a perspective of there's an app for that are plentiful and when it comes to citizen science one of the most popular is one called i naturalist i naturalist is everywhere it's a global phenomenon that i be happy to show you um here on my screen you'll actually be able to see that in the world there is over a hundred million of observations through this website and data bank collector um over 380 000 species has been scientifically confirmed and recorded um inaturalist works through basically people out on the landscape making observations taking pictures and submitting what they see to this beautiful database um places like calgary are captured here i can come up here and type in calgary alberta canada and lo and behold over a hundred and six thousand observations in the calgary area with um over three thousand almost four thousand observers uh if we we dove into this deeper you would find grace and me here as a contributor so it is definitely citizen science at its best there is um an invitation to everyone to to go out as a family or as individuals but citizen science um as we i need to keep referring is not anything brand new um the apps may be um in the last couple of years decade or so but the idea of observing nature and sharing is absolutely not new it is part of our human experience so back to nature in this picture i'm willing to spit i'm willing to bet that there is someone out there a class out there that might notice something amazing it's a picture i actually took um while out hiking in lake louise um while i'm letting this filter in i'm curious what you have to see in this picture so again yet again let me know what you're seeing i took this picture in august beautiful trail called the plane of six glaciers now if you haven't done it it's actually a trail i love because you can get up into the mountains to a place where they'll serve you a warm beverage and a bowl of soup that sounds perfect hike sherry that sounds just wonderful to me yes we have some observations coming in uh from a couple different classes they're saying we see a bee we see some different kinds of leaves on the screen as well there's a bee pollinating even good descriptive words here and flowers oh my goodness and in a bay we have a french class here too joining us telling us the french word for bee this is beautiful thank you i i knew you guys weren't going to leave me hanging out there by myself i knew you were going to join in with those great observations and yes you got it this is the subject that we're going to dive into right now um this v represents the whole reason grace and i are here today is to talk about pollinators pollinators are incredibly important a basic definition is a pollinator is an animal that causes plants to make fruit or seeds they do this by moving pollen from one part of the flower to another this pollen then fertilizes the plant um and it's essential because only fertilized plants can make fruit or seeds and without them plants could not make wonderful things like apples or beautiful um vegetables i guess this is up for debate but cucumbers without bees there would be no almonds apples blueberries cherries avocados cucumbers onions grapefruit oranges and the list goes on and on um when it comes to pollinators these are often considered the superstars the keystones but pollinators can be many things so i think we're gonna let this video show us a little bit more of the wonderful world of pollinators there are lots of pollinators and they are all special pollinators come in many forms and that diversity is critical to our food supply pollinators include the many species of bees beetles butterflies flies hoverflies and other insects that gather pollen from plants when they feed birds and bats are also involved in pollination together they are responsible for the reproduction of most flowering plants including about 30 percent of our food crops do you know what you're seeing a bee may not be a bee some pollinators are hard to sort out so here are a few tips for sorting out the be like ones is it fuzzy these tend to have little hairs covering part of their bodies wasps even though they are black and yellow like a bee don't have those hairs bees can be black and yellow mostly yellow all black bluish even metallic green hoverflies look like little sweat bees but are actually just flies is it hovering in place bees can't do that pollinator diversity matters the unique features of each pollinator allows them to pollinate different types of flowers therefore having diverse pollinators is important to maintaining different types of plants and crops native bees like the southeastern blueberry bee and the mason bee are some of the best and most important pollinators for agricultural production our nut and fruit orchards depend on them squash bees have such an affinity for squash flowers that they sleep in them bumble bees are the only pollinators strong enough to open the blooms of bottle gention a unique wetland plant many fruit species in other parts of the world depend on bats for pollination many orchids depend on a specific wasp or moth for pollination learn more about pollinator identification and how to protect them at nativeplantsandpollinators.org beautiful pollinators so important um without them basically earth's ecosystem could fall apart so when it comes to the idea of protection i think we're all on the same page that yes please now in terms of pollinators and what they need i'd like you to consider them as part of our world and and exactly on the same plane as us think about it for a moment what we need um there are four things specifically water food shelter and space now i know you guys are are up for a challenge i'm curious when we put all four of these items together these basic needs um i'm curious what these four needs come together and are known as so when we have water food shelter and space we have something that is special and can support us and in a nutshell that is habitat habitat or as i like to refer to it as home is very important to the health of our pollinators um in canada in alberta we have several different kinds of pollinators as the video said from bees to butterflies to birds and we have lots of different ecosystems especially in alberta um the ecoregions support all different kinds of these creatures on the left-hand side represented so number one represents our forest our parkland number two our wetlands and number three the grasslands now if i were to introduce you to the wonderful rusty patch bumblebee and ask you to guess which one uh number one number two number three which habitat serves it the best and the strongest i'm curious what you would guess now while you're guessing i thought it'd be a little i thought it might be interesting for you to learn a little bit about the rusty patch bumblebee see they live in colonies um and they need areas to provide nectar and pollen from a variety of flowers they need a constant supply through the spring all the way to the fall as well as they require nesting sites underground they will overwinter in undisturbed soil so any any guesses as to which habitat the rusty batch bumblebee might belong to grace oh let's see hmm i think it might be based on our guesses number three sherry number three the grasslands what smart citizen scientists we have out there absolutely correct the next contestant in this habitat finding game is the tiger swallowtail butterfly this beautiful butterfly requires mud mud puddles to suck up water because of its rich minerals as well they enjoy dandelions as a source of nectar but they'll visit other ones other flowers if they need to any guesses as to which habitat the swallowtail likes best um let me take a look here you know i think based on our chat it might be the forest in the parkland oh let's see absolutely bang on well done everyone and so of course through the power of deduction um our red wing blackbird who requires water um in order to build its nest and does most of its hunting and and family raising by um the water and cattails being its favorite area to nest in it would honestly beat the wetlands and i'm sure most of you guessed that um was i correct in that grace most people were on that absolutely you were sheri perfect now um i'm getting a sense that there's a lot of pollinator knowledge out there and so i think it's time to put it to the test because we know you know a lot so here's your first question in the chat if you think this question is true or false please tell us with a t for true and an f for false bumblebees flap their wings back and forth not up and down what do you think calgary citizen scientists oh my heart is racing as we wait for this terrible delay to be over still waiting here in the chat just for our answers to come in but this is a really good question sherry you know what do i think of when i think of a bumble bee flying do i think of their wings going up and down or back and forth you know i'm seeing so far some truths and falses but i think based on the chat most people think this one might be false oh interesting well i've learned by doing this presentation so i'm absolutely somebody who's just come into this knowledge it is true bumblebees flap their wings back and forth in order to get their um bearings and land to collect pollen um this is a back and forth motion that also works with the shape of their wings so not up and down like the hovered fly that we saw in the video this is getting good next question what flower colors do bumble bees like most now i'll give you a little bit of info intel on this um bees can see color absolutely they actually have a much broader range of color vision than even us they have the ability to see ultraviolet light which gives them an advantage when it comes to seeing nectar and he guesses either one two or three in the chat i'll give you a little bit of there's actually new studies coming out with ultraviolet pictures of flowers and when you look at them you they actually look like bull's eyes so the flowers have adapted to the bee's way of seeing um but in terms of color i'm curious which ones do you think are the most attractive to the beast oh my goodness what an interesting fact that is i would like to get a good look at those ultraviolet photos and be able to see the world as our bees see the world that's just amazing so far sheri we have a few guesses here one class said red orange and pink we have some other classes who are saying blue violet and purple what might the right answer be oh uh drum roll it is number three the blue violet and purple bees see purple as a combination of yellow and ultraviolet light um and that's a very interesting fact and i have to add in one more fact these have a fi a far higher flicker threshold than us and that's why honeybees have no trouble pollinating moving flowers have you ever wondered when flowers are moving in the wind how the bees can even land it's their high flicker rate of vision um so they have they see it as no trouble moving targets bring it on so let's bring on the next question true or false bumblebees live only underground this is a really good question sherry and i think you've already given us a little bit of info on this one too i remember you telling us a few pat a few facts about our friend the rusty patch bumblebee and where they like to live in the grasslands so i wonder if that'll be a good hint for all of our classes who are in the chat so let's see so far i'm seeing falsis in the chat what do we think oh my goodness these are very in-tuned citizen scientists bumblebees um live in logs uh on top of the ground um any small spaces that are their favorite um that's why it's actually really great if you can leave your lawn clippings on your lawn because all those small spaces of nature building up on top of itself provide beautiful spaces for bees to get in and build community compost piles and abandoned animal dens are other places that they love to build all right true or false now this is an important question a lot of questions come up um a lot of people ask us this question only female bumblebees have stingers and they only sting when they're scared or nervous true or false this one came to me from both of my own children and myself as a child um the whole idea of stinging and bees is a very popular topic any thoughts on that citizen science out there something we think a lot about too especially right now during the spring where we're seeing a lot of bees ah so far sherry we're seeing in the chat a little bit of true a little bit of false but mostly false so far well i'm happy to say that this is true only female bumblebees have stingers and they only only stink when they're nervous so the best advice on this topic is please please please give bees the space they need um with space stress levels go down even in the little creatures of the world all right what do bumblebees eat nectar and pollen honey other insects or all of the above now this one i know you were listening i know you know the answer i suspect we're going to see a flood of number how's that for an intro drum roll drum roll drum roll waiting here hmm what do i think are bumblebees what do we think about when we think of our bumblebees going out into the world to collect food especially right now i bet they're super hungry at the moment when they're waking up in the spring so far i am seeing a lot of number one sherry nectar and pollen is this the correct answer yes yes nectar and pawn paying attention thank you calgary citizen scientist since your last question bumblebees are covered in an oily substance that makes them waterproof now think about this they have a lot of work to do and they have a short summer to do with it would it make sense for them to have a raincoat we are waiting here for our answers let us see you know sherry i think this one might be true what do you think it is isn't that marvelous bumblebees have their own raincoat which you know what summer is short take note everybody get outside and wear the proper equipment and you can be outside all year long now pollinators don't have a perfect life i bet some of you might be surprised to know that they are impacted by our way of life and unfortunately many pollinators are species at risk species at risk means that they are at risk of possibly disappearing and this would be a tragedy when you consider all the bees that we have living in our world did you know that there are in this picture represented by all the beautiful lentil beans there are 4 000 bee species in north america each of the lentils represent this of those 4046 of them are bumble bees and you'll actually see if you look at picture the red beans represent the bumblebees and if you look even closer you'll see a yellow bead that represents the honeybee that little busy bee that beautiful honeybee um is only one of 4 000 different bees in north america now here in alberta we have 300 bee species which is amazing to me how many are bumblebees 29 pretty good odds but still there is only one honeybee represented by that yellow bee and even though there is a large diversity of bumblebees in alberta up to 30 percent of them may be on the decline now why is that for lots of reasons mostly due to that beautiful idea of home those four elements if they're not all present for our bees via habitat loss climate change disease and the use of pesticides we see the number and population on the decrease but the good news is we can help and we can help in lots of different ways the number one and the reason you're here is citizen science so getting on an app and having a look and giving your observations to science and being part of the solution educating others taking this information home and having having a discussion over dinner with grandma and grandpa or a guardian or your parents siblings tonight uh plant gardens we all know the nectar in pollen it's number one on our bees lists and lastly um but certainly not lastly the last in our list is creating bb houses for shelter you don't have to get fancy you can use your compost pile and leaving the the lawn cuttings on your lawn so there are amazing apps out there and this is another one uh actually sponsored by i naturalists seek is a wonderful one it's absolutely free it's used on a mobile phone it is a point shoot identify and it is an um it is completely free and connects to all the wonderful resources and data of i naturalists that we introduced you to earlier when it comes to citizen science there are projects on mass out there projects for everyone if you're a bird lover if you're an animal lover if you're a bumble bee extraordinaire um passionate person there is something out there for you as a citizen scientist um and the only thing we ask and this is where i'm gonna ask you to raise your right hand i want you to pledge and repeat after me citizen scientists i promise to go outside for the rest of my life with people i love i heard it we've promised it we're gonna make it happen citizen scientists we are in good company welcome to the team on behalf of green calgary and cpa southern alberta chapter we thank you for being here and thank you for making your promise to stand together to collect the data to get to know the world outside your window and we may not have a lot of time for questions but know that grace is going to place in the chat how to find us and that we would love to receive any questions via our website and thank you for being here thank you everyone thank you sherry that was wonderful i loved learning more about pollinators today and i love learning how to become a citizen scientist and i'm sure everyone is going to join us today in getting outside and learning something new and asking lots of questions about the world around us so yes we are going to share with you a couple links in the chat right now about how you can learn more about c-paws and how you can learn more about green calgary as well here we go i absolutely welcome you to connect with us we are here and stronger together as shown by our partnership um between green calgary and cpas so thank you everyone for having us thank you to the city of calgary and all of you have a great summer get outside remember your promise wonderful i'm not seeing any questions sherry oh hold on i do see one right now just at the end of our session here sherry where do bees go in the winter time that's a great question um they don't live live lives as long as us unfortunately but the queens um on the whole are the ones that uh keep everything going and do the hibernating waking up in the next year to start new colonies so many bees they live their beautiful life over one season but carried on by the queen so they hibernate and they general and they have all those wonderful places in your long garden um and b homes to spend that cool winter wonderful that is awesome answer there's so many places that our bees can live too i know that they like those nice log piles that we leave around all of the different nooks and crannies and in the bark as well that's awesome thank you so much sherry my pleasure all right no other questions here today but many thanks from all of our friends here who joined us and we want to thank you as well you've been wonderful it's been awesome to be here with you and we hope you all have an awesome day enjoy the rest of your expo