Connecting Students with Wildlife

The Connecting Students with Wildlife Project (CSWP) is a west coast wildlife monitoring project under the Raincoast Education Society, a local non-profit dedicated to environmental education and community stewardship in Clayoquot and Barkley Sound. We use non-invasive, motion-sensor “camera traps” to help teach local students from five different schools about coexisting with wildlife in our communities.

CSWP is a joint project between Clayoquot Biosphere Trust (CBT), Bob Hansen, and the Raincoast Education Society. CSWP was founded in 2015 by Bob Hansen and Keltie Minton, with help from Megan Adams and the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, who piloted the school wildlife monitoring program with local schools. To make this project a continuing reality, support has come together from CBT, SD 70, Ahousaht Education Authority, District of Ucluelet, District of Tofino, WildsafeBC, Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, University of Victoria, Tides Canada, local businesses and student interns. The Raincoast Education Society's Kaylyn Kwasnecha is the CSWP project coordinator.

Local wildlife specialists work first hand with students grades 4-12 through a series of sessions that include classroom and mostly outdoor field work. Students are taught about wildlife safety, tracking, and ecology and are given the opportunity to develop upper-level research skills close to home. They develop wildlife technician skills while deploying cameras then collecting, recording and analyzing data from the cameras and from field observations of wildlife tracks and signs. Students also have the opportunity to connect, learn together, and share their experiences across schools, ages and cultures at the Annual Wildlife Symposium (coordinated by CBT) at the end of the year. 

We collect thousands of images and videos each year from cameras setup strategically in local neighbourhoods, and review them to get a glimpse of the wildlife that travels through our communities. This data helps us understand which habitats are important for which species, the time of day that different species are most active, and helps inform the community of potential human-wildlife conflicts. CSWP continues to be developed and results will be shared with the communities.