Hunting for the Hines's emerald dragonfly with Great Lakes scientists offers an equally rare learning opportunity for Rogers City students.
Posted on October 13, 2015 by Brandon Schroeder, Michigan State University Extension, Michigan Sea Grant; and Tracy D’Augustino, Michigan State University Extension
A field trip this fall to Thompson’s Harbor State Park was an incredible hands-on science experience for 46 seventh-graders from Rogers City Middle School looking to learn about the many threatened and endangered species that inhabit this coastal park. This also was an amazing career experience, where students worked alongside scientists in search of the federally endangered Hine’s emerald dragonfly.
On this day, students were literally getting their feet wet with Michigan State University Extension (MSUE) scientists learning about biology and life cycles of Hine’s emerald dragonfly, habitats and wetland ecology, and Lake Huron biodiversity conservation. This part of a new citizen science effort led by Michigan Natural Features Inventory (MNFI) aimed at engaging local volunteers in the effort to map and protect critical high quality habitats of the dragonfly at Negwegon and Thompson’s Harbor State Parks (along the Lake Huron coastline in northeast Michigan).
Attention to the dragonfly offers an opportunity to promote Lake Huron biodiversity conservation — the conservation of a variety of species and their habitats. Thompson’s Harbor State Park, managed by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, presents the perfect outdoor learning experience. It offers accessible trails that thread through more than five thousand acres and seven and a half miles of diverse coastal Lake Huron habitats. For the school, it offers an opportunity to blend science with language arts when students undertake a science writing project later this year designed to promote awareness and conservation of these rare species found locally...
To read more about this Center for Great Lakes Literacy supported student stewardship project online, click here!