Science and history.

Yesterday I took a 2.5 hour drive to Macraes Flat to the DoC base there. I'm going to be working up here in a few weeks - I will be living at the base for about 6-8 weeks. Luckily they are letting Billie (my dog) live there too!

Macraes is one of the last major places that grand and Otago skinks live in the wild. DoC are working really hard to look after them and have built a predator proof fence in one area and do A LOT of predator trapping in the rest of the reserve. There are over 800 traps spread out over a very large area. All the traps have to be checked each week in the summer and every 2 weeks in the winter.

Yesterday I was helping check one trapping line - it took us 3.5 hours to get along the one line in a 4WD. The traps we checked had caught 13 hedgehogs, 5 ferrets and one feral cat.

It's really important that DoC catch all these predators - can you tell me why? See if you can answer these questions and post them in a comment.

What is a predator?

What problems will the predators at Macraes cause for the skinks?

Sometimes there are people that don't like the fact that DoC traps these predators - especially cats and hedgehogs. What do you think? Why is it important that we do trap them?

Macraes is important for another reason - there is a giant goldmine up there, but it also used to be a big gold mining place in the 1880's when the Otago gold boom was on.

In this photo you can just see a hole in the ground - it is the opening to an old mine digging.

We visited the site of an old gold-mining town. It was in the middle of nowhere and you could only reach it by a shingle road and then 4WD or walking. It was strange to think there used to be a busy wee town here - there was a pub, school, shops and all sorts of buildings but now you can only see the ruins and the flat areas where the buildings were.

 The only ruins still standing a bit.

 There was a building here - see the stones and flat areas.

 Great view!!

 Site of another old building.

 Near where the pub might have been - these are a pile of old glass bottles - the class is really thick.

Notice the flat area? Another building would have been here.

Blogs and Citizen Science

Today I have added some new things to this blog!

On the right side you will see a blog list - this is a list of other school science blogs and blogs from the other teachers doing the same science programme I am - there are some really amazing things going on all around New Zealand - check them out and ask the teachers questions about what they are learning!

Up the top of the blog you will see a tab for Citizen Science.
Citizen Science are projects all around New Zealand that you can get involved in - scienctists can't be everywhere in NZ so they like to ask us for help gathering information - basically what is in your backyard! Try some of these out!

Keep checking back on the blog because I have some exciting news coming up - involving a bit of a competition for you!

Setting up a skink habitat

Last week my job was to set up a small skink habitat for some Otago skinks we are recieving from Wellington Zoo. The skinks will only be with us a short time so it is just a simple cage setup for them to live in while they are here.

Here is how you set a temporary skink habitat up:

1) Clean out the cage! If your cage has been used before it needs to be cleared of mess from the previous tenants.

 2) Add soil for the ground base.

3) Add a variety of schist rock - the skinks use the schist to sunbathe on and to live under. It is important when putting the rock in that you make room for the skinks to go under the rocks and make sure everything is stable so they don't get squashed!

Can you tell me why it is important that the skinks can have somewhere to sunbathe?

4) Add some driftwood and plants.


5) Use old bottle lids for water and food containers - just the lids, otherwise the water will be too deep!



Now we are ready and waiting for our skinks to arrive - hopefully I get to go to the airport to pick them up!

Skinks!

Skinks? What are skinks?

Well these are skinks and these videos show you the two places I am working - Macraes Conservation Area and the Mokomoko sanctuary in Alexandra.

In particular these are the grand (Oligosoma grande) and Otago (Oligosoma otagense) skinks and they are very special - especially to Central Otago!

Grand and Otago skinks are quite rare - DoC has classified them as Nationally Critically Endangered, which means they are very rare and threatened with extinction - they have the same status as the Kakapo. They are two of New Zealand's largest and rarest lizards.


Monitoring and working with grand and Otago skinks are one of the main things I am doing on my science programme. In Alexandra there is a small sanctuary that some lizards live in. I spend some of my time looking for the lizards and photographing them.

The reason we photograph the lizards is so that we can identify which individual skink they are. Grand and Otago skinks have distinctive patterns on the side of their heads and down their body that allow us to identify who they are. Each skink has a different pattern and by comparing previous photos we can tell who is who.

The main place to find the skinks is at Macraes Conservation Area and I will be spending a week at a time living there and helping with their skink work.

Here are some interesting facts about grand and Otago skinks:

(see if you can find out what the words in BOLD mean)

                They are OMNIVORES. They eat small soft fruit, invertebrates (insects), other plant life and occasionally other small skinks.

                They live on rocky schist outcrops in tussock grasslands and can be found around Lake Hawea, Lindis Pass, Alexandra, Macraes Flat and a few other places. They are very rare so you would be very lucky to see one in the wild.

                 Cats, stoats, weasels, ferrets etc are their main predators but hedehogs are also a big problem. Hedgehogs are not only predators of the skinks but they are also competition - they eat the same things skinks do so then there is less food for the skinks.

Starting off...

Exciting things are happening with science at Wanaka Primary. For the next six months I will be working with the Department of Conservation in Alexandra and at Macraes Flat Conservation Area as part of the Science Teacher Leadership Programme overseen by the Royal Society of New Zealand.
This is a really exciting opportunity to see how science works out in the real world and then to come back into school to develop the science programme for Wanaka Primary.

This blog will be a place for me to share what I am experiencing and to share science resources and information. Keep checking in for information on what I am doing.