For the past few weeks, we – the year 9 STEAM class of 2025 – have been looking into biodiversity and why it is important for the Earth. Biodiversity refers to the variety of living things on our planet. We learnt that the decline of biodiversity is a crucial problem, and pests such as stoats or possums are endangering our native wildlife.
To put our research and ideas into action, we created pest monitoring devices out of recycled materials; small ‘tunnels’ made out of milk cartons and camouflaged them into the environment. Inside the tunnels, we placed sponges coated with red food dye and put small bits of peanut butter to attract the pests. We also put pieces of paper on each side of the tunnel so we could track the footprints of the pests, and make it easier for us to identify them.
After all this, we went to Smiths Bush to deploy the tunnels and monitor what kinds of pests live in the reserve. This may sound complicated, but don’t worry! There are a lot of easy ways that you can help protect our country’s biodiversity! Whether it is making sure your trash is securely in your bin or setting up store-bought traps in your backyard, even the smallest things can help make a big difference.
The trip was an enjoyable experience and we had a lot of fun creating the tunnels, we hope our experiment will be a success!
By Aima Khalid and Miriam Cowen