The IPM Program participated in the 2024 Youth Career Discovery Expo in Grande Prairie AB today! Our program helped promote our field entomology research program while also describing how High School, Post-Secondary, or even Graduate students can apply to work for the Federal Student Work Employment Program (FSWEP). We talked about the Beaverlodge Research Farm which is part of the network of Agriculture and Agri-Food Research and Development Centres spread across Canada and the types of research that takes place at our Farm.
The day-long event drew at least 2000 students from across the region! We were pleased to showcase a small portion of our insect voucher specimens (Figs. 1-2 and 4-7) using an interactive "Insect Scavenger Hunt" created by our two technicians, Amanda and Shelby! Keen visitors were challenged to find three different insects amongst the pinned voucher specimens we brought along to view. Winners earned their very own ground beetle to take home (Figs. 3 and 8)! We were one of the few agricultural careers to be included in this special event!
Many thanks to our program's two excellent technicians, Amanda and Shelby, and to the City of Grande Prairie for hosting this important event! Amanda, Shelby, and Jennifer spoke with 200-some students who stopped by to talk! The most exciting part of the day was that 60 carefully curated ground beetle specimens were adopted to good homes with students who left us feeling pretty excited about Entomology!
Here's a few photos of the day-long event at our booth!
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| Figure 1. Booth, including our interactive insect scavenger hunt, is ready to go! |
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| Figure 2. Our booth at the Youth Discovery Expo is ready to go and here's our first visitor of the day! |
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| Figure 3. Our ground beetle "prizes" are ready and waiting to be won by visitors taking on our interactive insect scavenger hunt! |
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| Figure 4. Standing room only by 10 am - great interest from our student visitors and some super entomological identification skills at work! |
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| Figure 5. Shelby talking insects with students while they completed the insect scavenger hunt. |
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| Figure 6. Amanda describing insect characteristics for the pinned voucher specimens. |
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| Figure 7. More student visitors to our booth - we had really great interest and excellent questions! |
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| Figure 8. We brought 70 "prize" ground beetles and, by the end of the day, 60-some were adopted to good homes by our enthusiastic student visitors! |
#Entomology #Agriculture #WiSTEM #WestCdnAg #CareerOpportunities #PeaceRiverRegion #AAFC #IPM #FieldHeroes #NaturalEnemies
