Fish Creek Park

Students looking out at the manmade pond at Fish Creek Park.

Last week, we visited Fish Creek Park to learn more about wetlands.  Along with walking through the uplands, we also spent time studying the invertebrates at the manmade pond.  

Dipping for invertebrates at the wetland.

The best place to find invertebrates is along the bottom of the wetland or by the reeds, in the muck.

Here are some of the discoveries made by the grade 5 students:

Brooke: "I caught a really small snail with a bloodworm on it.  The bloodworm was red, obviously."

Trevor: "The most interesting discovery was the little leaches and the minnows swimming in the water, with the algae just floating along the surface of the water."

Jeshua: "I love the wetland!"

Sara: "Most of the bugs were hiding under the water, but the one I caught was a backswimmer."

Katie: "Did you know that backswimmers bite, and that most water insects live at the bottom of wetlands?"

Doey: "I discovered that backswimmers have no backbones, and that the giant water bug was 3-4 inches full grown."

Janick: "I looked at different bugs and saw how they function and work to get food.   I also learned that the wetland looked like it had no living things in it, but there was lots of life!"

We used identification cards to help us figure out what we caught.

Taking a closer look with the magnifying cup.