Langdon students share lessons

Times Reporter 

 

The Grade 3 students in Farran Harkonen’s class at Sarah Thompson Elementary School have been learning about the Burrowing Owl and the Swift Fox for the past two months.  The eagerness of the students was contagious as they shared details about their project on May 16.

The Swift Fox is a threatened species from the Grasslands region, which encompasses Langdon, Drumheller, Calgary, Strathmore and surrounding areas. There are currently only 94 Swift Foxes left in Alberta. 

The Burrowing Owl is another endangered species, with only about 1,600 left in the world. 

There are many ways to help them, and one of the best ones, according to Riley Dyck, is “educating others”.

“We wrote letters to the government,” said Emily Wakaruk.

A few interesting facts the students shared about the project were:

“The Burrowing Owl doesn’t actually make its house, it just takes it from other animals,” said Ashlynn Bates.

“The Swift Fox isn’t endangered, it’s threatened,” said Jayden Kluppelburg.

“A long time ago hunters used to shoot Swift Foxes but now they’re protected by the government,” said Riley Dyck.

“The Swift Fox is extremely fast,” said Seth Pullishy. 

The students plan to make presentations around the school to the other students, and will be presenting their project to the parent council.

 

 

Protecting the future 

 

Farran Harkonen 

and her Grade 3 class Sarah Thompson Elementary School

 

We are a grade three class from Sarah Thompson Elementary School in Langdon, Alberta. As part of our Life Cycles unit in Science, we have been studying the Swift Fox and Burrowing Owl. For the past two months, we have researched about these animals on the Internet, watched videos and Skyped as well as e-mailed experts from the Cochrane Ecological Institute, Operation Grasslands and the Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation. 

The Swift Fox is a threatened species from the Grasslands’ region of Alberta. There are only ninety-four Swift Foxes left in the wild in our province. At one point, the Swift Fox had completely vanished from Alberta. There are many issues facing the Swift Fox. Habitat loss, predators, the oil and gas industry and a low survival rate negatively affect the Swift Fox.

The Burrowing Owl is another endangered animal from the Grasslands’ Region of Alberta. There are only 1,600 burrowing owls left in the world. Every year the burrowing owl population drops by twenty-two percent. Pesticides, climate change, low reproduction, enemies and loss of their homes adversely impact the Burrowing Owl. 

We need to help these animals because they are an important part of the Alberta ecosystem and will go extinct if we do not do anything to aid their survival. We can help the Swift Fox by writing letters to the government and educating others.  We can also help the Burrowing Owls by eating Alberta beef (as ranches provide homes for these animals), sending letters to the government to support habitat conservation and teaching others. Thank you for reading and listening to our ways to help endangered species like the Swift Fox and Burrowing Owl. We hope that others in the community will also try to help support the Swift Fox and Burrowing Owl’s survival.