1. Sunlights Detectives
Needed!
Cross over the culvert and stop at the
grassy area across from the “no motorized vehicles” sign.
The sun is receiving mysterious messages that demand more sunlight from
this area. Your mission is to find out who
is demanding more sunlight and why. Go
undercover: disguise yourselves as beam
of sunlight.
2. Disguised
Put on your sunlight
energy disguise
(yellow clothes and sunglasses). Line up
along the path facing the hill. Can you go
the speed of light? Run up and down the
hill three times to build up enough energy
to be sucked up into a beam of sunlight.
Repeat these words before you run:
“Beam me up into the sun. As we go, we’ll
find the one,
Who’s using up all the sunlight. Here we
go, let’s take to flight”
You are now a beam of sunlight. Travel
along in disguise.
3. Captured
4. Eaten
6. Gulped
Zap! A tree intercepts your sunbeam. Step
off the trail to the left, choose a tree and hug
it. Trees use sunlight energy, air and water
to make food. You are now captured sunlight
energy inside the tree.
Stop on the trail when you see the brown
and red shed on your left.
Birds are one of a spider’s
greatest enemies. Search the
treetops for birds with your spy
scope. Do you see any?
Sunlight enters a plant through its leaves.
Find a flat leaf on the ground
and examine it through a special solar-powered microscope.
Open your leafslide like
a book and place your
leaf over the hole. Close
the slide, sandwiching the leaf inside.
Hold the slide up to the sky (don’t look
directly at the sun). Look at the patters
and shapes in the leaf.
Share your leaf slides by creating a slide
show:
Guess what? You’re now
digested sunlight energy
in the stomach of a little
bug. Bugs like chewing
tender green leaves. Find your bug by kneeling and looking in the moss or under dead
leaves. How many bugs can you find?
Crawl like a bug on your hands and knees
up the trail and search for a good bug home
using your spy scope:
Look for small holes on the ground.
Look in dead trees, stumps and logs.
Show off your choice for a home and
explain why you like it.
What creature might want to eat you next?
Get into a circle, holding your leafslides
in your right hand.
5. Stuck
On a “click” signal, pass the slide to the
person to the right. View the new leaf
slide.
Stop at the culvert
(about 37m from the
shed).
Repeat these steps until each person’s
slide is returned.
Munch, munch! Something is eating these
leaves. Search for a leaf with an insect hole
in it.
Munch, munch! You are being eaten in the
leaf. Make a “munch,
munch” sound and pretend to eat the leaf as
you move up the trail.
Your bug hops up onto
the fallen tree and is
caught in a spider’s
web. Crunch, crunch!
Moan and groan as the
spider eats you. You
are now digested sunlight energy in the spider.
Look for your spider’s web on the fallen tree
or nearby. Be careful not to break any webs.
How many webs can you find?
Did you see spiders or prey in the web?
When it is safe, do a spider walk up the trail:
Straighten out your arms and legs. Bend
over so that your hands are touching the
ground.
Amble up the trail a short ways on all
fours without bending your arms or legs.
Gulp! A hungry bird swoops down and
snatches the spider and swallows it. Give a low
moan as you are gulped. You are now digested
sunlight energy inside the bird.
Fly down the trail until you see a brown apartment building on your right.
Birds use special calls to find each other. Stay
near the benches and find a bird friend:
Have an adult write out two identical sets
of birdcalls, each on a separate piece of
paper: chicka dee dee dee, hee hee hee,
caw caw caw, cheer-up cheer-up cheerily
and chirp chirp chirp.
Split into two equal groups about 10 metres apart. Give one set of birdcalls to
each group. Each person gets one. Two
people use the same call in the bigger
group if there are odd numbers. No one
says which call they have.
All the birds on vision blockers and make
their calls repeatedly. Each bird slowly
finds the bird in the other group with the
same call.
Give your bird friend a handshake and
take off your vision blockers.
Flap your wings, make your birdcalls and fly
down the trail. Who might want to eat you
next?
7. Chomped
8. Decayed
9. End of the line
Stop at the rustic bench on your left.
Stop at the two small tree stumps on your
right, about 64m from the bench.
Stop at the large boulder with a plaque on
it.
The cat will die someday and decompose.
Decomposition releases energy into the soil,
helping plants to grow. Find a good place for
the cat to die: Find a small plant that needs
help growing. Describe why you have chosen your site to others.
Do you know who has eaten the cat? Look
for them on a hidden plaque near the boulder. Use the side of your pencil or crayon
to make a rubbing of it below.
A hungry domestic cat
pounces on you while
you are resting on a
small bush. Chomp!
Chomp! You are now digested sunlight energy
inside the cat. Give a cat
“meow”. Practice sneaking up on your prey:
One person is the bird and the rest
are cats. The cats line up across
the little wooden bridge.
The bird takes 20 giant steps down
the trail, facing away from the cats.
When the bird says “go”, the cats
sneak up.
If the bird hears them, the bird turns
around quickly. The cats freeze. If a
cat is caught moving, the cat is out.
The bird turns around again and
the cat sneaks closer.
The cat that gets closest safely becomes the bird in the next round.
With only two people, take turns seeing
how close you can get to one another.
Junction Creek
Sunlight Detectives
Decomposers like fungi,
small bugs and bacteria
break down dead
things. Small creatures
may also eat them.
Look around this area
for fungi. Can you find
any nearby? Look on
the trunk of trees for a green patch.
DO NOT EAT OR TOUCH mushroom or
other fungi as they could be poisonous.
Nibble, nibble! Little decomposer creatures
are eating the dead cat and you, since you
are sunlight energy in the cat. Who are these
decomposers?
Congratulations! You have discovered
those who are demanding more energy
from the sun.
Distance: 1.1 km return.
This activity is adapted from the activity “Of Wizards
and Potions: A Woodens River Adventure” from the
following book:
Location: Corner of McLeod St and
Norman St. Street parking available.
Barlow, J., Warner, A. and Taylor, G. (2002): Earth
Adventures in the Halifax Region: 25 nature trails for
fun and discovery. HRM Adventure Earth Centre:
Halifax, 280 p.
Trail tools: Prepare and gather these
tools for each person:
Junction Creek
Stewardship Committee
c/o Nickel District
Conservation Authority
200 Brady St
Sudbury, ON P3E 5K3
T: 705-525-8736
E: [email protected]
W: www.junctioncreek.com
Approximate time: 1hr
• Leaf slide (folded rectangular
piece of cardboard with a square
hole in the centre)
• Scope (decorated cardboard tube/
paper towel roll)
• Sunglasses and any yellow
clothes you have
• Vision blocker (bandana/cloth for a
blindfold)
• Small pieces of paper