THE GEOLOGICAL BUMBLE BEE PROJECT; AN OUTREACH PROGRAM THAT COVERS FROM WISCONSINAN GLACIATIONS TO MODERN CLIMATE CHANGE

The Geological Bumble bee project is an outreach program coordinated by Mount Royal University faculty and students for grade 3-9 students in Calgary, Alberta. The main educational focus for this program is to actively engage children in “hands-on” authentic scientific research designed to build multi-discipline and multi-dimensional models of Calgary green spaces. Geology provides the deep time perspective with local Cretaceous Paskapoo sandstones and Wisconsinan glacial tills, while bumble bees provide an indication of the impact of climate change on these critical pollinators for both wild and crop plants.

In grades 2-4, students build/install bumble bee boxes and collect/describe a rock. These rocks mostly come from glacial tills and are being used to define the boundary between the Laurentian (from the east across the Canadian Shield) and Cordilleran (from the west out of the mountains) Ice Sheets. While this boundary is well established in north Calgary, it is not well defined in south Calgary. The following fall, these students collect their boxes and analyze the bumble bee colonies established in their boxes.

During the pilot project in the summer of 2013; ~1/3 of the 120 boxes installed by two schools groups (~100 students) were occupied. Two further schools joined the program in 2013/2014, building and installing a further 280 boxes (~210 students). ~300 rocks have been described to determine that the glacial till described to date comes from the Cordilleran Ice Sheet (implying that these outcrops are to the west of the boundary between the ice sheets).

The youngest group of students (grade 2) that presented their “Incredibee projet” at the 2013 City of Calgary Mayor’s Environmental Expo won the “Making a difference award” for the impact of their presentation. These students are becoming environmental stewards as illustrated by their statements: “When researching, we found that bees are disappearing around the world and that scientists don’t know why. We want to help with the research.” “Yesterday, we built bee boxes! I think that was the best day of my life so far!”