REMOTE TRAIL CAMERAS
AT RUM RIVER ELEMENTARY!
TALENT DEVELOPMENT
SCIENCE INTEREST STUDY 2011-12
Here is a highlight of what we have captured with our cameras at Rum River Elementary.
Check out our Shutterfly Share page by clicking HERE!
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We are excited to be able to tell you about a wonderful opportunity that we are starting with our students. In partnership with our school, MN Project WILD, Afton State Park, Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, the MN Department of Natural Resources, and the University of Minnesota, we are conducting a new curriculum called Taking Action Opportunities, TAOs. We will be doing science in our schoolyard with remote wildlife cameras and pairing the science we do outside with lessons inside the school. You may have already heard something about this project. MN Project WILD has a website where you can read more about this curriculum and view pictures from previous schools and protected areas. www.dnr.state.mn.us/projectwild/tao/index.html
The remote cameras we are using take pictures day and night, using an infrared beam in low-light conditions. You may have already used remote cameras for taking pictures of wildlife near your home, especially if you are or know someone who is a deer hunter. When the cameras are on, the beam from the camera senses both movement and heat from an animal’s body when it crosses the beam, triggering the camera to take a picture. Each picture records the animal’s image with the date and time that the picture was taken. We will have a camera monitoring wildlife in our schoolyard. The students will be monitoring it over the next several weeks and comparing their images with images previously collected in a Minnesota protected area.
Remote cameras are used globally to conduct wildlife research. Now Minnesota students are getting an opportunity to learn how to do remote camera research in their own schoolyards. Students use cameras to monitor the mammals living in their schoolyard. They compare their data with previously monitored protected areas and research sites in Minnesota. Students use their analyses to explore the ways people change the landscape and how these changes affect the species that live in and around our neighborhoods and communities.
--information from TAO website...for more informatin click here !
McKinley Elementary school's program was in the news, check out the article HERE!
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