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WL McLeod Wetland Education Centre

McLeod wetland OwlThe WLM Wetland Education Centre continues to develop into a central and accessible Education Centre. Working with our many ‘Partners in Education’ the project has created an interpretive, educational trail system, with a virtual component, within a naturally occurring urban wetland inside the municipal boundary of Vanderhoof, BC. 

The wetland is situated next to the Nechako River and two schools, making it an excellent showcase for school and community-based education and awareness. The interpretive trail is accessible locally to K-12 students from Vanderhoof and Saik’uz First Nation, and the community and even tourists. The virtual component – accessible from this website - is for all students across School District 91 in addition to the general public. 

A goal of this Education Centre is for it to be accessible year-round - so that students can see how the wetland environment changes across the seasons and understands how animals and plants adapt to their environment.

wetlandstations

Learning Stations

There are 10 learning stations in the wetland, each with a theme that covers some aspect of the wetland ecosystem. Coming soon, there will be pages on this website for EACH station that will host the worksheets, images, explanations and student content! For now, all the worksheets are entire wetland can be found under the Resource menu in the right-hand menu bar on this page.

  1. Insects and aquatic plants - water collection, bug counting 
  2. Forest and wetland interactions - plant height measurements, pollinator observations
  3. Town and wetland interactions - temperature and depth measurements, soundscape observations
  4. Animals - wild and domestic animal counts (tracks and sightings)
  5. Care for our wetlands - garbage collection and count
  6. Island habitat - observations and discussion about isolation and predation
  7. Bird watching and flooding - bird watching and census, water level observations
  8. Riparian zone and berries - berry identification, riparian habitat observations
  9. Culverts - water level measurements
  10. Bats and floodplains (bug house coming soon) - wildlife observations, human impact and interactions

 

Virtual Tour of the Wetland

This space is for folks that can't make it in-person to the wetland. Take a tour of the wetland in each season of the year - learning about and exploring how the wetland environment changes over the year.

Winter

Spring

Summer

Fall

Coming soon!

All
Watershed Skills, Applied Skills
All Schools, W.L. McLeod Elementary, Nechako Valley Secondary,
1
Years
50
Students

Resources

  • Accessible year-round

Worksheets for Data Collection & Learning

Download the activity sheets for each station of the wetland. Use these for each season to collect data over the year to explore how the wetland changes over time. The K-Grade 2 package has a worksheet for each station, and can be used by ANY grade and modified to suit the learning level.

Virtual Tours

Take a walk through the wetland in any season of the year without leaving your classroom! Use these virtual tours to see the wetland at different times of the year to record how it changes with the seasons.