Setting up for success

Aim

This activity assists you to:

• pick a suitable site for surveying biodiversity
• prepare references and resources needed before undertaking the field work activities (Big picture data, Sampling along a transect, Using quadrats to sample).

Preparation

Scan the school grounds and local surrounds for a suitable area to study biodiversity. Select a site that supports a significant variety of life. It will assist the learning process if the survey area contains clearly defined and stable ecosystems. The area you select needs to be able to tolerate the disturbance of a class of students surveying it.

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Process

Step 1 — Select a site

Select a survey site where there is varied vegetation and an opportunity to observe wildlife.

Observations of wildlife might be direct or indirect. Direct observations include sightings of birds, animals, lizards or insects as well as listening to bird calls. Indirect observations involve looking for evidence of the presence of wildlife. Evidence includes droppings, scats, claw marks, gnawed food, nests or bones.

You may want to return to the site each year to observe changes in the area and make comparisons. Consider this when selecting the site.

Step 2 — Identify a marker

Identify a suitable marker as a reference point. You might choose the school gate, a monument, a large tree (with a vegetation protection order) or a road intersection. Record the marker's location on the data recording sheet to use it as a reference point for future surveys.

Step 3 — Plot the site's location

Once the marker is established, the exact location of the site for the detailed survey needs to be measured from this point and documented. The scientific reason for this is because the biodiversity within an area changes from point to point and over time (with the seasons and passing years).

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Step 4 — Create a reference chart of living things in the area

Before students do any of the field activities (Big picture data, Sampling along a transect, Using quadrats to sample), prepare a reference chart of the living things in the selected survey area. Students can refer to this when they are recording the data. The more identification that happens before the activity, the less sorting and renaming that needs to be done after the field activity.

To create a reference chart:

• Photograph, draw or take samples of the living things common in the area.
• Identify each different living thing in some way. For example, grass #1, grass #2, grass #3, grass #4, tree #1, tree #2, bush #1, bush #2, fungus #1, moss #1, insect #1, insect #2, spider #1 and so on.

Step 5 — Prepare data collection sheets

You can modify and copy the data recording sheets for students from the templates provided.

Download data recording sheets for:

• Big picture data (MS Word 35kb)
• Transect data (MS Word 38kb)
• Quadrat data (MS Word 36kb)

Reporting the data

To ensure the information is not lost to future generations of students, you could publish reports on the biodiversity survey in the school yearbook or magazine or on the school website.