Fleming College

MEDIA RELEASE FROM KINGSTON LAND CONSERVANCY:

Four students from the School of Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences at Fleming College, Lindsay, Ontario, will be visiting the Kingston area this week (Sunday, January 24 and Monday, January 25) to assist the Land Conservancy for Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington.

For their “credit for product” course they are researching the nesting needs of Bobolink and Eastern Meadowlark, bird species that are “at risk.”  Their 15-week assignment will result in recommendations to the Land Conservancy for the ideal number of cattle to have on the birds’ nesting area at the Land Conservancy’s Depot Creek Nature Reserve, located near Bellrock.

“We’re an all-volunteer organization,” explains Mary Alice Snetsinger, the project lead for the Land Conservancy, “and it is hard for us to find the time to research this question thoroughly. The students will be reviewing the literature and interviewing researchers, the farmer who uses the meadow, and others.  We will benefit from their work and they benefit from bringing their skills to a real-life project.”

The students are in Credit for Product course in Fleming College’s Ecosystem Management Technology program. The course facilitator, Sara Kelly, says that the course helps students learn project management skills and gives them a chance to apply what they have learned in the classroom to practical problems.

A total of 12 student teams are working on various projects with governmental and non-governmental organizations this semester. Projects include monitoring flying squirrels using trail cameras, creating a draft forest management plan for a land trust property, and building and installing nest boxes for secondary cavity nesters.

For Elizabeth Travers, one of the four students coming to Kingston, it is a chance to come home during term and show her classmates her home town.

“I was so excited to be selected for this project. I love Kingston and the natural areas nearby and I can’t wait to show my team.”

The students will be presenting the results of their research and their recommendations to the Land Conservancy in April. For more information on the work of the Land Conservancy for Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington, please contact:

Mary Alice Snetsinger 613.376.6916 or ecoserv@kos.net

For more information on the Credit for Product course at Fleming College, please contact:

Sara Kelly sara.kelly@flemingcollege.ca