Research/Project Results

Methodology

This study was done by the students in the Creighton School District in Phoenix Arizona. Large 3600 sq. ft. quadrats were laid out, and the students were armed with data sheets, identification keys and pictures, binoculars, a bed sheet (for collecting insects shaken from bushes and trees) and collecting bottles.

They visited the site during the months of March and April, 2008, and proved to have very keen powers of observation, finding many animal signs as well as spotting the animals themselves. They found coyote scat and the wing of a large bird that had probably been the coyote’s supper; they found cactus wren nests, egg shells from newly hatched birds, and some starling eggs broken on the ground; they saw turkey vultures soaring overhead and spotted all of the animals on our list and in our pictures. (They really enjoyed looking at the tiny yellow flower spiders shaken from the blooming Palo Verde trees when we got back to the classroom and put the spiders under the microscope.)

Soil samples were taken and plants identified and counted.