Preparation

Recently we have really began preparing for our upcoming trip; considering it less than a month away! We spent a day outside studying the creek at our school and learning how to use the One Cubic Foot boxes. We captured and documented many different bugs, plants and animals. We learned what to look for when picking a spot for the cube. We picked a spot along the creek to put the cube and we set up cameras and documented the life traveling through the cube for about an hour. We then watched the video and tried to pick out animals that passed through it. We also learned how to properly capture the animals, we used butterfly nets and many other tools like that. Then a few days later we learned about DNA barcoding. We did a lab where we captured DNA from a Madagascar Beetle. We experienced a more in depth process than what we will be doing in Madagascar but it is important to understand what will happen after we ship the animals off to the labs. We have begun to really dive into what will happen in Madagascar.