CONTENTS
April 1996
Friends of Ojibway Prarie Increase Accessibility
Little River Enhancement Group
Creating Wildlife Habitat at Wrigley Corners O.E.C.
Tell Us About Your Pond Adoption!
New Programme Materials
FRIENDS OF OJIBWAY PRAIRIE INCREASE WETLAND ACCESSIBILITY
by Heather Gosselin, Adopt-A-Pond Coordinator
On May 17, 1993 the students at the Children's Rehabilitation Centre School adopted the pond in Ojibway Park in Windsor, ON. Most of the students at the Centre are in wheelchairs so adopting a pond was easy, but getting close to the pond was a serious challenge. Because of the uneven terrain and steep banks, the students couldn't get close enough to the water to observe pond life.
The Friends of Ojibway Prairie, a community group, suggested the idea of a boardwalk to the Parks and Recreation Department of the City of Windsor. In February of 1995, construction of the boardwalk began.
Kirk McCarthy, a resource teacher at the Children's Rehabilitation Centre and a member of the Board of Directors of the Friends of Ojibway Prairie, acted as a consultant for Parks and Recreation Department. McCarthy ensured that the boardwalk was wheelchair accessible and safe for wheelchair users.
The Children's Rehabilitation Centre of Essex County uses the wetland for sensory awareness activities. Teachers scoop wetland critters out of the wetland so that students can have a closer look, and immerse their hands into the sample. The students touch rough and smooth surfaces such as tree bark and frog's skin. They smell a great variety of aromas such as decaying plant matter and water lilies. Perceptual activities include exercises in figure-ground discrimination. For example, students are asked to find the frog hiding in the duck weed, or spot the turtle on the floating log.
In summary McCarthy explains "We use the pond for many educational purposes, but the best one is getting outside and enjoying and appreciating the natural beauty of our wetland."
THE LITTLE RIVER ENHANCEMENT GROUP
by: Ian Naisbitt
President of Lil' Reg
In the winter of 1989 I received a package from the Canadian Wildlife Federation entitled, "Habitat 2000, Act Today for Wildlife in the Year 2000." This unit of study was created by the Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment Canada and the Ministry of Education. It was designed to involve students in the study of habitats in their school yards and local communities. I read over the booklet several times and decided it would be a good idea to integrate this programme into my environmental studies classes at Concord Public School. I asked a parent of one of my students if there was an area in the local community that needed some help. He gave me the location of Little River as a possible site we could work on. I visited the area many times and took photographs of the conditions. It was a shocking sight to behold, I realized this indeed was the area that needed our attention.
Many decades ago a dykeway was constructed separating an oxbow of the original river from the "new channel" on the low-lying lands near the mouth of the river and Lake St. Clair (Refer to map). In April'89, I met with Parks Windsor and they gave us permission to cleanup the municipal park adjacent to the river. The first "Cleanup Crusade" took place on Thursday, June 15, 1989. On the following Saturday, our volunteers concentrated on the oxbow or "old channel" of Little River since it was degraded and in need of our attention. What an experience that was! After just two hours our tired group had stacked an impressible pile of human discards: over 100 car tires, two stoves, one washing machine, a child's plastic swimming pool, lots of cans and plastic and a variety of steel parts of rusted automobiles. We were proud of our heap and were happy about collecting it, but we knew we had to go back again. Other area schools were asked to attend the cleanups because of the monumental tasks ahead of us. We called ourselves "The Habitat 2000 Club" and we adopted the old channel and park as our community environmental project.
In November 1990 at the request of our group, the municipal council of Windsor proclaimed the old channel as the "Little River Wetlands." We appreciated the oxbow as wildlife habitat for wetland species. Our volunteers have seen American toads and leopard frogs on the site and a variety of other water loving animals. We recognize that this site is prime habitat for amphibians and have done our best to rehabilitate and improve the quality of the area for these animals and plants.
Several years ago the Department of Parks and Recreation for the City of Windsor created two ponds in the Little River Corridor Park. Native plants have been allowed to grow in and around the edge of the ponds. Trees have been planted adjacent of the ponds and the ground underneath has been left to naturalize. Fish and turtles have found the ponds and survive over the winter. These ponds provide suitable habitat for amphibians. One of the ponds overflow into the old channel, so this link made it possible for animals to introduce themselves naturally into the pond.
After two years and nine cleanups of the old channel, Concord Public School realized they needed help to expand their vision of improving the environment in their community. On February 16, 1991 the Little River Enhancement Group, Essex-Windsor (Lil' Reg) was formed to adopt the Little River Watershed and coordinate environmental activities to benefit the watershed (An area of approximately 60 square kilometers in three municipalities).
What started as one project has taken root and grown. Lil' Reg has participated in 14 "Cleanup Crusades" of the garbage-strewn old channel and other sections of the Little River and its tributaries, over 12,000 trees have been planted in the watershed, several kilometres of nature trails have been created, brush piles installed and funds raised for ongoing projects.
Between 1993 and 1995 the Lil' Reg efforts have focused on getting schools in the rural municipality involved and adopting natural areas in the watershed. Developments in McAuliffe Woods Conservation Area, Weston Park and KOA campground have been the priority for funding and volunteer efforts. We have participated in tree planting and nature trail development in all of these projects.
Other watershed enhancement projects have included printing a brochure, "The Community Stewardship of the Little River Watershed", erecting signs at road/river crossings, participating in hiking/nature tours, writing articles for educational purposes, and supporting environmental celebrations, such as Earth Day, Environment Week, Day at the River, and National Wildlife Week.
Students, their parents and teachers, other community volunteers, government agencies and local businesses have provided the labour (time and effort) to make each of our projects successful. We appreciate everyone's efforts at working together. Our group has realized the partnership that has been created is responsible for our success. On Tuesday, November 21, 1995 Lil' Reg held their first "Appreciation Night" to recognize the efforts of every individual, business and organization that helped us accomplish our goals for the watershed.
Members of Lil' Reg know watershed enhancement is an ongoing commitment. We meet regularly to review the progress of our projects. We have an annual brainstorming session to set short and long term goals. Our group travels by van throughout the watershed once a year to find new areas and opportunities for the community to get involved with an environmental project.
CREATING WILDLIFE HABITAT AT WRIGLEY CORNERS O.E.C.
by: Ken Quanz
Wrigley Corners Outdoor Education Centre
In July of 1995, Ted Cheskey and I began the construction of the Wrigley Corners Outdoor Education Centre wetland. We had been planning the pond for several years. In 1993 Ted's work, "Habitat Restoration : A Guide For Proactive Schools" was published by the Waterloo County Board of Education. One small part of this document, section 8.2, discusses "Habitat Types". By this time a number of habitat types had been established at Wrigley Corners as "demonstration plots" for schools that would like to attempt their own Habitat Restoration sites. We also felt that this was a good way for us to establish a local seed source. Much work has been put into the "gardens" surrounding the school. As a result, we now have a thriving prairie area surrounded by a young forest area. In addition we have planted "new Prairie" areas over the past several years in order to show what the areas look like as they develop.
Butterflies love these areas in the summer as there are always plenty of attractive flowers in bloom including Silphium, Monarda, Aster, Rudbeckia, Solidago and Asclepias species. In the winter the prairie and surrounding woodland combined with an active feeder program, makes a haven for winter birds such as the American Tree sparrow, Dark-eyed juncos, Downy and Hairy woodpeckers as well as a Red-bellied woodpecker, American goldfinches, House finches, Black-capped chickadees, White-breasted nuthatches and Mourning doves. This habitat has also provided an ideal hunting ground for a Cooper's Hawk! A feeder program without the habitat areas would not, and could not, attract this much wildlife.
As part of our continued monitoring of the project we had noted a glaring omission. We lacked a wetland which could compliment our other areas. Birds, butterflies and other wildlife require water as well as suitable food, shelter and space. We have a few herpetiles on our property including Garter snakes, Red-backed, Spotted and Blue-spotted salamanders, and American toads, but we are definitely lacking frog species and breeding space for our existing amphibian fauna. The closest wetland is only 250 metres away, but it is across a busy highway.
A number of areas were considered for the construction of a wetland. Some were ruled out as being too close to the septic system, too close to a farmers corn/bean field, or for other obvious reasons such as too much slope. Water recharge was considered along with amount of shade and amount of leaf litter which would accumulate in the fall. Mowing patterns of our large board tractor unit also became an issue as the Grounds Department would need to work around any construction of ours.
Safety was of prime importance. Our site serves as an outdoor education centre to over 6,000 grade 7-OAC students every year. We needed to be able to control access to the area well enough so students could not accidentally go swimming while trying to catch a long football pass during lunch time. Our pond needed to be large enough and deep enough to meet our objective as a breeding site for amphibians, but this meant relatively deep water near children.
Our school board had no real previous experience with ponds being built on school grounds. In most cases, where wetlands existed on new ground they were filled in for soccer fields. Only one school wetland area has been maintained after considerable lobbying and it is separated from the play area by a 5 foot high chain link fence with a locked gate. Access is allowed for small groups with lots of supervision. Unfortunately, this natural habitat is not yet linked to another wildlife habitat on the school grounds, but rather built up against play fields.
In order to develop our aquatic habitat we needed permission from the Grounds Department of our board as well as the blessing of our superintendent. The superintendent's permission turned out to be the easiest to access as he knew we constantly worked in, near and around water in our outdoor program. In order to get grounds approval we needed to submit a site proposal giving adequate reasons for the particular site as well as safety considerations. This is an important step in the planning process and turned out to be a fun-filled learning experience as we laid out a "natural" shape with stakes and then mapped the entire area using plane-tabling techniques. We decided to build a large pond, 7.4 m by 3.7 m and 1.5 m deep. The next step was to provide a contour map of the pond. This showed us that three of the sides would be very steep, and once lined with clay on top of a rubber lining it would be next to impossible to climb out except at the one side. This convinced us to fill in the deep centre with several large limestone boulders which would provide a foothold for any person unlucky enough to try swimming as well as good hiding places for the frogs, toads and salamanders.
At this point we were visited by our grounds head, John Watson. John is a very reasonable man who had many questions. What are you going to do about fencing? safety? water filling? long term maintenance? plantings? mowing? if you move and someone else takes over? Fortunately we had done our homework and were quickly able to satisfy him of the worth of the project. Thus, we became the first approved pond plan in the Waterloo County Board of Education!
Money is always a problem! While we were given permission to go ahead no funds were available from the board or our own small centre budget. Having completed our homework made it easy to cost out the project. We knew the exact size and contacted several garden centres for prices for liners and liner pads. A local stone company helped us figure out the amount of natural flagstone and the associated costs using our scale map. Finally, a local excavation contractor walked the site with us, looked at the hazards, suggested we include an extra pure sand lining below the liner pad and liner, and then sourced large rocks for us (which we had dug up while excavating other sites). Total costs, including a plaque came to $1725 with taxes.
It took very little time to fill in an application form for a "Friends of the Environment" grant from Canada Trust because our documentation was thorough. It took not much longer to get the "go ahead" from "Friends of the Environment". We actually had the cheque in our account before we purchased a thing!
June was too busy a month to build a pond. Besides, we had many students and we felt that construction equipment, mud and students would not mix well. Mid July was set with all concerned parties for our construction "day". At 9:00 a.m. Ted and I were on-site with the liners, flagstone and stakes in the ground. By 9:30 the back hoe arrived on its float. While it was jockeyed into position the dump truck arrived with the large limestone boulders and one huge granite bolder which were dumped to the side. The driver was now ready to remove excess soil.
Ever so gently, the back hoe operator dug the teeth into the ground and drew the shovel along the string line connecting the stakes. Soil was piled along the north, west and south west sides to provide a berm which would direct rainwater into the pond. The low area in the north-east corner was left untouched to provide a natural overflow to the play field grass. In spite of all the soil needed for berms we still needed two truckloads removed from the site. (This was exactly what the practised eye of the contractor had estimated.) By now our deep area was well over 1.7m down. After the second trip with excess soil the dump truck returned with pure sand which the back hoe operator removed from the truck and evenly deposited in a 15cm layer over the bottom and sides of the pond. The whole operation was done as if the back hoe was a teaspoon!
By 11:00 we were able to jump into the pond and unroll and place the liner pad and then the liner. The large flagstone now was used to hold the liner in place at the top. In the meantime the dump truck had gone for a load of blue clay. Once again, as if by the spoonful, the clay was placed in a 10-15 cm layer on the liner. You may ask why we covered a perfectly good liner. We were assured that the clay would not hurt the liner. As well we wanted to protect this investment from the rocks we were going to place as well as from the effects of UV light.
While the back hoe lifted the rocks into position using a chain the dump truck operator made a final trip for fine stone chips which were placed around the edges as a base for the flagstone. This would also help to kept the water from being muddied. Finally, the large granite bolder was placed next to where we planned an opening in the rail fence. A plaque was placed on the boulder explaining the reasons for the pond and thanking "Friends of the Environment" for their support.
Noon saw the back hoe loaded and all excavator workers gone. Just under two hours had been used for actual construction. If we had hand dug the pond we would have spent several weeks and I don't know how we would have moved rocks weighing more than a tonne!
All that remained was to transplant some aquatic plants from local wetland habitats destined to be filled in for construction projects, raking and seeding the berms, and fencing the area with a low, three rail cedar fence.
An aquatic home was now ready for amphibians, but would they come? Within two weeks they had discovered it on their own. Does this mean that the frogs had been using our property during the nights as a hunting ground? Were they making the long dangerous trek across the highway? We soon had a resident Bullfrog, several Green frogs and about 25 Leopard frogs. At the same time we also noted many Dragonfly nymphs crawling along the bottom, and snails on the rocks. One of our objectives, to provide a water area for the existing fauna, had obviously been met.
Throughout the fall we noticed that the usual noon hour crews of pick-up football players still tossed the football, but the non-players tended to gravitate to the pond where they would sit and try to count frogs. By the end of most lunch times the majority of the class was gathered in the area of the pond quietly watching and talking. Another prime objective had been met: kids were meeting nature in one of the most natural, unstructured ways possible - through their own curiosity.
Our pond is now six months old. The ice measures at least 30 cm thick. Hopefully, the deep recesses of rock and the layer of mud harbours many different types of creatures. Maybe next year a turtle? Only time will tell!
TELL US ABOUT YOUR POND ADOPTION!!
In recent years, scientists have noted a drastic decline in amphibian populations in North America and throughout the world. This apparent decline is a result of both the over development of wetland areas and increasing pollution in the atmosphere and water systems. This loss of amphibians is a warning that our world as a global ecosystem is changing. If we act now we can stop the loss of amphibians in our own backyard.
The Metro Toronto Zoo's Adopt-A-Pond programme was created to promote the preservation, restoration, and creation of wetland areas. We currently have 1,200 Ontario schools participating in the programme, and our goal is to have all 4,800 schools in Ontario involved in this amphibian conservation effort.
Please remember to contact us, at the address below, once you have participated in the Adopt-A-Pond programme. Certificates of Appreciation and frog decals are available for each participating student and teacher recognizing their efforts. This newsletter will provide updates on the Adopt-A-Pond programme and provide an exchange of information between your school and others across Ontario. If you wish to contribute to the newsletter (interesting amphibian tales, important facts, student stories/poems or photographs of your "adopted" pond) we would be pleased to receive your admissions: IT IS YOUR NEWSLETTER.
Adopt-A-Pond
The Metro Toronto Zoo
c/o Bob Johnson
361 A Old Finch Ave.
Scarborough, ON.
M1B 5K7
The Metro Toronto Zoo's Adopt-A-Pond programme is pleased to provide each school participating in the programme with two new programme materials: the book "The Urban Outback - Wetlands for Wildlife. A guide to Wetland Restoration and Frog-friendly Backyards", and a cross-curricular guide.
The book "The Urban Outback - Wetlands for Wildlife" was written to provide additional information on wetland restoration and creation techniques. The book focuses on the ecological basis for wetland restoration and a realistic expectation of the wild life that may be attracted to a "frog-friendly" schoolyard. A section provides instructions on how to create a wetland, and includes solutions to problems you may encounter. The guide also contains the Canadian Wildlife Services' "Amphibian Road Call Counts" and "Backyard Frog Surveys" programmes. The re-printing of this book for educators has been made possible by grants from Wildlife Habitat Canada, Petro Canada and Placer Dome Canada Limited.
The Adopt-A-Pond programme's cross-curricular guide meets the guidelines of Ontario's Common Curriculum, and will help teachers further integrate wetland biology and amphibian conservation into the classroom. The guide includes lessons for kindergarten to OAC levels on the water cycle, wetland ecology, amphibian biology, and environmental issues. The 400 page guide includes both classroom and field lessons, as well as ready to use work sheets. The cross-curricular guide also contains a "Wetlands at the Zoo" package for educators who wish to do a wetland unit at the Zoo. The printing of this guide has been made possible by grants from Imperial Oil, Environmental Education and Awareness Programme (Ministry of Environment and Energy), and Ontario Hydro.
Both the book "The Urban Outback - Wetlands for Wildlife" and the cross-curricular guide will be sent to all educators on our mailing list in late May as long as the enclosed form is filled out and sent to us by May 1, 1996.