St. Albert’s provincial park now has a free hotel for bugs.
About 50 Grade 11 and 12 Bellerose Composite biology students were at Lois Hole Centennial Provincial Park this week to take part in the Ducks Unlimited Canada Wetland Centre of Excellence program. The program provides students with cash and training so they can explore, promote, and protect wetlands.
Bellerose biology teacher Clayton Wowk has been running the program at Lois Hole Park with his students since 2022. Grade 11 students pitch and carry out research projects in and around the John E. Poole wetland, while Grade 12s run wetland education programs for elementary students.
“I think it’s become something the kids look forward to,” Wowk said of the program.
The Bellerose Grade 11 students made several trips to Lois Hole Park in the weeks of May 21 and 28 to conduct their experiments. The Grade 12 students taught Grade 5 students from Sir Alexander Mackenzie Elementary about the park’s birds and bugs on May 27.
Student science
Wowk said this year’s Grade 11 corps decided to build an insect hotel as one of its research projects. (They initially proposed a pollinator garden, but an Alberta Parks official they spoke with said the hotel might be easier to build and more interactive for guests.) The hotel consisted of a pile of pallets stuffed with bricks, straw, and sticks, topped with a corrugated metal roof, all about the size of a large crate.
All materials used in the bee hotel were scavenged from donations and ongoing renovations at Bellerose, said Bellerose student Jeff Fenton — bugs aren’t picky, and using scrap materials reduced waste. Pollinating insects will use the different materials in the hotel as habitat. The hotel is located near the park’s parking lot and will have signage explaining its purpose.
Over on the Poole wetland boardwalk, Bellerose students Joshua Mumby and Bennett Shulman were doing their school’s first bird count with the help of a pair of binoculars. They said they spotted about 30 species at the wetland in the last week, including an osprey, several ruddy ducks, and a pod of 23 pelicans.
“I saw an American wigeon for the first time, which was very cool,” Mumby said.
Mumby said bird counts are a way to track biodiversity in this region, which is one of the few protected wetlands in St. Albert. He and Shulman planned to file their observations with the citizen science website eBird for later analysis.
“It’s really cool to see what we’ve learned in biology class out in real life,” he said.
Schulman said doing the count had been an eye-opening experience.
“I didn’t realize there were so many species that were so local,” she said, adding she has a new appreciation for biodiversity and the wetland.
Fenton said building the insect hotel inspired him to do more to support nature.
“I’ve always enjoyed nature and being out in nature a lot, but this has shown me that I can also help out with it.”
Visit wce-education.ducks.ca/index.php/en for more on the Wetland Centres of Excellence program.
