Nature in Your Classroom Resilient Ecosystems Grades 7 9

all right hello everyone and welcome to today's nature in your classroom live stream my name is Jasmine and I'm an educator with the Toronto and region conservation Authority you can see that on my hat here we are so excited to be here with you today we are going to be talking all about resilient ecosystems and you can see me outside here in an ecosystem that we're going to be talking about little bit later it's wintry and it's snowy and it's beautiful and I'm so excited to spend the next 20 to 30 minutes with you sharing so many interesting things so we have few folks helping us out today we have some folks here in person with me we have some people on the back end Sarah's helping us out with streaming today Sarah you can go ahead and say hi hello hi Sarah all right and we also have people watching the chat on YouTube so if you're tuning in on YouTube feel free to put any comments you have into the YouTube chat feel free to also put any questions you have into that YouTube chat and we'll be answering questions in the middle of the live stream and then again at the end so if you have anything that you'd like me to tell you about please put it in there and we can we can get to those throughout the live stream all right if you're tuning in today there is also worksheet that goes along with today's live stream and you can download it we'll be putting link in the chat for where you can go to actually access that worksheet we can see picture of it here on the screen as well so that's what that worksheet looks like amazing okay so Brazilian ecosystems today we're talking about ecosystems and what is an ecosystem it's good question so it's an area like the space that I'm in that has very distinct abiotic and biotic factors so non-living and living factors and an ecosystem is kind of comprised of how those different factors interact with each other ecosystems are all about interaction and today we're going to be talking lot about interactions what kinds of ecosystems do you think we have here in Southern Ontario you might be thinking of forest maybe you're thinking of meadow maybe you're even thinking of lake like Lake Ontario but what about the space that I'm in right now can anyone think of what kind of ecosystem I'm standing on the edge of I'll give you hint some of you might know this plant right here so the space I'm in is an ecosystem that has lot of this plant it is identified or kind of defined by having standing water most of the time either seasonally or year round and it has really unique set of plants and animals that live here so you know know what I'm talking about where am I'm in wetland so right now I'm on the edge of wetland space and wetlands are some of the most incredible ecosystems that we have here on planet Earth have some stats for you 40 of all species living on this Earth either live and or breed and reproduce in wetland ecosystem so they host an incredible amount of biodiversity 40 of all species that's mind-blowing to me they provide water and food and they also provide livelihoods for over billion people living on this Earth and they do all of this but they actually only cover six percent of the Earth's surface so they are such incredible and important ecosystems for so many different reasons but they're really far and few between they really don't cover lot of surface area when we consider the Earth on global scale let's dive into some of the biodiversity that we can find here in wetland in Southern Ontario like the one I'm standing at the edge of we're talking about biodiversity we're talking about many different animals and plants and creatures and living things all coming together in space and again we're talking about the interactions among all of these living things so when we're going to be talking about biodiversity the way that want to talk about it is by starting from the bottom and working our way up and I'm talking about the trophic levels of an ecosystem at way at the bottom of these trophic levels are our primary producers and these are organisms that can get energy from the Sun and turn it into energy that can be consumed by other creatures my friends this is an example of primary producer right here so mentioned this plant before some of you might have seen this before some of you might know the name this is actually cat tail and you can see here in the winter months this is what it looks like and if we pull little bit right here you can see that fluff so all what is this what this is all of the seeds of the cattle and if shake it around there it goes so that's how this plant is able to disperse and spread you can see more behind me this is fantastic plant that we can often find at the edge or kind of submergent in Wetland so half in half out let's look at another picture of some of the Aquatic vegetation that we can find here in wetlands and this picture was taken during the summer months you can see some of that submergent vegetation that might be some Cattails kind of half in half out of the water but then in this aquatic sample it was sample that was taken from the Wetland we can see some other forms of aquatic vegetation as well maybe some algae maybe some other plants that live fully underwater now when we took closer look into this sample that we took you'll never guess what we found swimming inside go to the next picture check it out your friends this is water boatman and it's only about the size of your fingernail it's very very small it's what we call macro invertebrate so it doesn't have spine it doesn't have backbone but it's one of the smallest creatures you can find with your Naked Eyes so without microscope kind of swimming through wetland space macroinvertebrates like this water boatman will feed on aquatic plants like algae and they'll also feed on Plankton and other Critters that are even smaller than them and they'll use aquatic vegetation in different ways as well sometimes they'll even lay their eggs on the structures created by aquatic vegetation underwater so really fantastic creatures even though they're so small now what kinds of creatures might rely on insects like the water boatmen if we're moving up those trophic levels let's have look at these creatures swimming through the water my friends I'm going to show you video of brown bullheads and the brown bullheads that we can see in this video are actually quite quite small you can see them swimming through there those are babies so they've just hatch out of their eggs and lot of fish like brown Bill Head my gosh just saw cardinal flying by it's so cool to see that there is some Wildlife here even though we're not hearing or seeing whole lot lot of fish like the brown Bull Head might not spend their whole life in wetland space maybe there's been they'll spend most of their adult life in lake are in the larger kind of deeper body of water but then they'll actually come in and use wetlands in order to spawn and reproduce so that's an example of creature that might not use wetland for its entire life but is still benefiting from the habitat that Wetlands create moving on up let's talk about some different creatures that live in wetland and this next one that want to tell you about is actually an animal that saw when was right here standing right here last summer so this is during the summer months and was looking out on this white space that you can see right there and of course during the summer that was that was water and there was lock sticking out and saw this creature just perched on log kind of Basking in the sun and the creature that saw was actually turtle now think the one that saw in the summer months here was painted turtle but want to show you some pictures and some videos of snapping turtle and snapping turtles are some of the most interesting in my opinion turtles that live here in Southern Ontario they look almost prehistoric and let's have picture let's have look at picture of baby snapping turtle in its shell so small my goodness and think we actually have video of baby snapping turtle kind of starting to emerge from its shell let's see if we can pull it up look at that so incredible so my colleague who took this video took it when this turtle was actually halfway in its shell so you can see these are some of the first moments it's experiencing outside of its shell look at the way they're opening and closing their mouth that's incredible and they're so small so often turtlenecks will be found kind of away from wetland space kind of on the banks or even as far away as nearby forest or Meadow and then once that baby turtle hatches it makes its way to the Wetland space think we have video of baby turtle finally making its way to the edge of the Wetland and eventually that baby turtle was able to enter all of the way into that Wetland and swim away and that's where they'll spend the rest of their adult life is in Wetlands or in Shallow bodies of water where they can gain protection from the elements protection from predators but also emerge from the wetlands when they'd like to bask in the Sun or search for food think we might have picture of what an adult snapping turtle looks like and wonder if we can pull that up because the pictures that showed you my gosh there it is the pictures showed you when the snapping turtle was only about this big my friends how big do you think this adult snapping turtle is we're talking big so heavy don't even know if could lift them so snapping turtles are also some of the largest turtles that we can find here in Ontario once they grow to their full size so neat but what are these creatures doing here in the winter months I'm not about to see snapping turtle just kind of walking along beside me right they're not out and about during this time of the year well they do something similar to another creature that you might know of that lives in wetlands and when this creature starts out its life it looks little something like this check it out so that is the egg mass of this creature that's how they start their life and then they emerge into an animal that looks little bit like this swimming along so you can see kind of face of body with very long tail that I'll show you there and then more of their body starts to develop they get little bit bigger their tail gets little bit shorter there they are I'm sure you can guess what kind of animal I'm talking about at this point and then when they're fully formed they look little bit something like this check it out so this is the northern leopard frog this is one of the frog species that lives here in Ontario and that definitely lives in this Wetland and during the winter months they actually spend the winter as an adult like this so This frog will bury down into the mud and into kind of the sediment down at the bottom of this water body and that's where they'll spend the winter it's also how Turtles like the snapping turtle will spend their winter months as well as down in the mud kind of in deep induced sleep until springtime when it gets little bit warmer and they can emerge cool just think it's so interesting to look at an area like this that looks kind of flat looks kind of desolate and to know that underneath that white underneath that layer of ice there's so much life just waiting to emerge again what kinds of animals might be even further above on the trophic level above frogs and snapping turtles we might not find lot of large predatory mammals in wetland habitat they might venture in but this might not be their kind of primary home but what we can find are some large predatory birds and check out this photo this is one of the best photos that think I've ever seen this is great blue heron and that gray blue heron is much in way on little snapping turtle and if we look at some of the other photos you can see that this was big fight think there was lot of back and forth between the snapping turtle and the scrape Blue Heron and these two kind of prehistoric creatures battling it out and you can see in the end the great blue heron was the creature that won this is one of the larger species of birds that we can find here in Ontario in wetlands in Ontario we can also find some smaller birds as well and want to show you picture of one of the more distinct birds that we can find in wetlands so these birds are not here in Ontario during this time of year and they are migratory species so they fly down south but they're just about to come back from their southern migration come up back north and they live in the GTA during the warmer months and think we can actually hear this bird right now check it out so that's exactly what the red wing blackbird sounds like and you'll start to hear this sound in wetlands in mid-march April May when the weather is getting little bit warmer when they come back and they're starting to create their territories in these Wetland spaces so neat so we've talked lot about the different biodiversity that we can find in wetlands and kind of all of the different creatures and living things that Wetlands support but wetlands are at risk less than 30 percent of wetlands actually still remain in Southern Ontario and in fact when we're zoning in on the GTA only 10 of original Wetlands remain in this space so what is the reason for that what are some of the threats that are affecting wetlands and their resiliency in today's day and age there are five main threats affecting wetlands and the first one is land conversion so when you think of the city of Toronto you think Urban you think developed you don't think necessarily large Wetlands and so as even though there used to be Wetlands as that development took place and as More Humans started moving in this space those Wetlands were maybe drained and paved over to create space for us to live so land conversion as water levels fluctuate and change Wetlands can either become flooded out or they can come completely dry which means that they're no longer wetland and those water level changes can happen because of humans pollution is large Factor threatening Wetlands as well as climate change but the factor or the threat that want to spend little bit time talking about right now and one of the reasons why we're hosting this live stream on today's specific date is invasive species so my friends today we are right smack in the middle of invasive species awareness week this is week dedicated to talking about invasive species talking about the threats that they pose talking about humans how humans are involved in these threats and then talking about the role that humans can play in preventing and mitigating these threats so making sure our ecosystems stay healthy despite the threat that invasive species pose to recognize invasive species awareness week during this live stream I'm going to be sharing two different invasive species with you I'm going to be talking specifically about how they interact with Native species and then also how humans are involved both in kind of their introduction and the Damage that they cause cause or have caused in the past but then also in becoming part of the solution and preventing further damage from these invasive species my friends both of these invasive species are living things that would impact wetland habitat either they have here in Southern Ontario or they might very soon all right before we move into that part of our live stream just wanted to check in with Sarah Sarah have there been any questions in the chat or do you have any questions for me right now don't see any questions in the chat Jasmine but do have question for you the Wetland that you're standing in front of it looks so beautiful right now in the winter and imagine it looks just as beautiful in the spring summer and fall so was wondering what Wetland are you in front of her where are you right now thanks so much for your question Sarah so I'm actually at the Courtright Courtright Center which is here just north of the city of Toronto and it's fantastic area there are some beautiful natural spaces like this Wetland behind me but then there's also something called The Innovation Trail which can teach visitors all about the different uses for energy the different ways we can conserve energy in our different in our daily lives so you might hear some creaking in the live stream that's actually because there's windmill right up there behind me so there's some different forms of energy being used at the space today it's very very unique site that's awesome thank you Jasmine will let you know if we have any more questions going forward awesome sounds good Sarah okay perfect so let's jump into our invasive species and just realized don't think defined what an invasive species is maybe you're already familiar with this word but in order to talk about invasive species we kind of have to talk about Native species in comparison all of the animals and plants and creatures that just talked to you about who are sharing the biodiversity of this space we're native species those are plants or animals or other organisms that have lived here for many many years and and living here for so long have developed these really important relationships with each other so let's think about some of the interactions that we just saw we saw or that we talked about as well we talked about the water boatmen laying their eggs on aquatic vegetation we talked about the great blue heron actually eating snapping turtle these attractions are kind of built out of years and years of these creatures living or these creatures and animals and and plants kind of living and developing in the same space invasive species are native somewhere in the world but what makes them invasive is that they have come over to new place and in this new space they don't have that history of developing alongside these other organisms so what that means is they don't fit into this ecosystem and they cause problems and we're going to be talking about some of the different ways that these species can cause problems by talking about the invasive species that want to share with you so the first invasive species that we're going to start with is actually fish and this is very big fish and it's fish called grass carp and we can go ahead and pull up photo of that grass carp and want to share with you model of this fish that actually have with you today because want you to get sense of how big these fish actually are I'm gonna watch my stuff here as back up don't want to fall in this Wetland but check it out have look at how big this fish is hope it's all fitting in the frame it's that very large model of the grass carp but it is actually life-sized so this is how big they can grow now craft carbs are not from here they were introduced to the Southern United States in the 1960s for use in Fisheries over the years since the 1960s they were able to escape the Fisheries that they were being housed in due to flooding they made their way into the Mississippi River and since then they'd be moving further and further north now there are some other carp species that came along with them that you might be familiar with but grass carp are the ones that we're most concerned about here in Canada here in Canada we don't have another we don't have Amy grasscarp yet they haven't become established here in Canada but we have been catching them back in 2015 we actually caught five grass carp here in Lake Ontario and that was pretty big warning sign we're concerned about grass carp entering into our Wetlands here in Southern Ontario because we know about the damage that they can cause and one of the ways that we know this damage is through common carp common carp is another fish species that actually does live here in wetlands in Ontario both wetlands and Lake Ontario will spend its out of life in Lake Ontario and then we'll come into wetlands in order to spawn in the spring and breed and lay eggs and let's have look at some of the similarities and differences between grass carp and common carb so if we saw grass carp here in Ontario that would be big that would be big deal that would be that would mean that lot of people are getting involved we're going out and we're trying to sign that grass scrap get it out of the water as soon as possible if we see common carp here in water bodies in Ontario not such big deal because they live here they're established here there's not too much we can do to get rid of them so how can we actually Identify some of the differences between these fish species you can have look here there's some pretty clear differences common carp has very long dorsal fin whereas grasscar as you can see on my model here has very short dorsal fin so it really doesn't take up the majority of their body common carp also have barbels on their face whereas grass carp do not and so barbels are these kind of sensory organs that come down from fish's mouth to help them sense what's around them in very murky or dark Waters some crash carp don't have those on their bodies these are kind of two ways that we can identify some of the differences between these fish grassparp also have eyes that are in the middle of their face whereas common carp do not but we've been able to see the damage that common carp has been causing here in Ontario and let's talk about the damage that grasscarp could cause to Wetlands here in Ontario like the Wetland right behind me have look at this image this is an image of healthy Wetland and it really shows lot of the biodiversity that we've been talking about so we can see in this image we can see diversity of aquatic vegetation we can't see them but I'm speculating there's diversity of macroinvertebrates as well probably some micro water boatmen in there we can see diversity of fish species based on their outlines and their shapes we can see frog there I'm sure there's Turtles as well and then moving upwards we can actually see great blue heron and we can see some different bird species as well so this is healthy biodiverse Wetland ecosystem with lot of native species that are interacting with each other in many different ways let's have look at what happens when grass carbs become established in wetland space like this check it out so that biodiversity has greatly decreased have look at the fish species that we can see we can see maybe one or two that are different from the rest but the majority are grass carp and this is because grass carp are very good at reproducing they're prolific at creating more of themselves so very very quickly with only few grass carbs if they get together they can very quickly establish population and then they can take over that means they're taking up all of the resources that native fish need right so they're eating up all of that aquatic vegetation and they're taking away habitat and space from our native fish species now you might think that this would only impact the native fish species themselves but as we're looking at this picture we can see that you know as an ecosystem everything is connected and there's all of these interactions like I've been talking about so when we lose our native fish species when they get out competed and are no longer able to survive than what we see is that other species suffer as well right so without our native fish species we see our great blue heron for example no longer has food to eat without our aquatic vegetation then we see that our frogs probably our macroinvertebrates probably our other bird species are also no longer able to live in this space so this is kind of the future reality that we're really trying to prevent and we're in really lucky stage at this point because there are no grass carp actually here established yet in Canada we're well positioned to encourage the prevention of them even becoming established in the first place and want to tell you more about some of the ways that humans are involved preventing this damage I'm going to do that with little bit of model that have here so I'm just going to transition over to different phone and that's what we're going to use to go ahead and look at this all right here we go so coming over here actually have this board here that's called Plinko board and some of you might have heard of it I'm going to turn the camera around and you can see here it's painted to look like Waterway and if we move all the way down that Waterway we land at Lake Ontario way down at the bottom here and so this Plinko board is used to model how invasive species like grasscarp could enter into Lake Ontario through different Pathways connecting Lake Ontario and the Southern United States and we're going to talk about some of the methods that humans can use to prevent their introduction we're going to do that using these barriers here our grass carp is going to be represented by this little piece and so having look at this Plinko board if we move all the way up if we have no prevention methods in place then let's see what happens so that's that grass crab goes all the way into Lake Ontario let's try again all right so what prevention methods can we use to make sure that our grass carp doesn't reach Lake Ontario well what about monitoring so here at trca we have teams that go out and they'll go into water bodies that look like this and they'll catch fish in these water bodies and they'll see if they can find grass carp that can be one way to ensure that if grasscarp start trying to make their way they are stopped as soon as possible so we'll put some barriers down for monitoring there we go now let's see if our grass carp can still make their way through okay it looks like they have made their way all the way down to Lake Ontario what's another prevention method that we might be able to use happen to know that humans have built an electric barrier in Chicago that is preventing invasive species or invasive fish species from entering into Canada so we're going to add another barrier right here to represent that electric barrier another prevention method might be education and Outreach like what we're doing right now the more people we tell about grass carp the more people will tell about how to identify them means the more people who would be able to actually spot them and inform us so that we can get them out of the water so we're going to add one more barrier here and another barrier here and that would represent two grass carp that have been spotted by folks who are out on the water and have been able to be removed by humans let's try again and see if our grass crab can make their way okay it looks like they were prevented that time let's try again looks like they were also prevented that time that was close one amazing so you can see that as these prevention methods are put in place it can make it lot harder for grass carb to enter into Canadian Waters and this is one of the ways that humans although we were directly involved with bringing invasive species here to Canada or to the North America or kind of near the ecosystems here now that they are here now that we've done that we can be an active part of the prevention of these species all right so grasscarp was one of the species that wanted to tell you about that is invasive here in Ontario the next one that want to tell you about is plant called phragmites and let's go ahead and pull up picture of what this plant looks like thankfully we don't actually have any phragmites living in this Wetland here but you can see there's picture of Lake Ontario and right at the bottom there is massive amount of phragmites and this is often what they'll look like Fred mighties are really good at dispersing themselves so if we have look at the diagram then we can see how phragmites will spread both by seed dispersal and also by rhizomes through the ground and these are kind of horizontal roots that will spread just under the ground and then put more of themselves up few feet away and so these are two of the ways that phragmites can spread they came from Eurasia and were not exactly sure how they got here but now that they're here they are very very aggressive and the spaces that they would be aggressive in are wetlands just like the one behind me thankfully we only have Cattail as some of the big plants in this Wetland which is fantastic but if one or two phragmites started becoming established here and started growing here you can see through these different dispersal methods how easy it would be for them to spread let's have look at video that took walking through an area where phragmites had become completely established phragmites can cause threats to Wetlands as well because they're such big plants as you'll be able to see in this video my gosh and they soak up so much water with their Roots so they can actually completely dry out whole Wetland they can soak up all of the water in wetland and just destroy that habitat entirely my friends looking at that video would you say we're looking at biodiversity does that look like very biodiverse space no so what this fragment is do is by spreading and taking over they're kind of dominating an ecosystem with only one species is that beneficial for all of the other species that might want to live in that ecosystem of course not remember when we were talking about Native species and how they've lived in an area and developed together developed these relationships phragmites has not done that and so when it becomes developed and it establishes sure maybe few species maybe red winged blackbird might be able to build nest in phragmites but the other animals that we're talking about that rely on aquatic vegetation will not benefit from phragmites and so it becomes kind of dead zone an area where there is no biodiversity and no other creatures or living things being supported what are humans doing now to protect Wetlands from this threat well there's obviously the the factor of getting them out of our wetlands and so we're still trying to figure out some of the best ways to do that you can manually remove them with shovel you can use different types of treatments But ultimately they're very aggressive and it's very hard to completely get rid of them there's also the factor of trying to prevent their spread and this is where we can kind of all play role in ensuring that invasive species do not travel from one ecosystem to another so my friends how can we all be involved in ensuring that our ecosystems like this Wetland behind me stay resilient and stay healthy preventing the spread of invasive species can be as simple as kind of wiping off your boot after you exit one ecosystem and enter another so say you're going hike in one area and you notice there's lot of phragmites growing around you pragmites can grow anywhere even in ditches on the side of the road so it's best to keep an eye out if any of those seeds get stuck on the bottom of your boot then they can easily be transported into another ecosystem so just giving your boots little bit of wash means that you're not accidentally carrying any of these species the same thing applies with grass carp right what we're talking about are these different Pathways for them to travel if you're kind of collecting water from one Wetland and then walking over and dumping it into another Wetland you never know what might be in that water and you never know what kinds of aquatic invasive species like grass carp eggs for example that you might be transferring all right so preventing the spread of invasive species is one really fantastic way to ensure that our Wetlands stay healthy another way is sharing your knowledge so we've talked lot today about Wetlands about ecosystems about interactions and about invasive species and sharing what you've learned today with others around you is really great way to ensure that more people are informed and the more people that know about this issue means the more people that can do things to keep our ecosystems healthy think another really fantastic way is this website called EDD maps and we'll go ahead and put link in the chat for you there EDD Maps is this fantastic resource where you can go and actually track sightings of invasive species so if you spotted an area where there was lot of phragmites growing for example you could go ahead and take picture you could upload that to EDD maps and that would inform others about the spread of this invasive species so it's also resource for you to go and research kind of the spread and distribution of some of the species that we've talked about today think one of the best ways to support our ecosystems and ensure their resiliency is going outside and building connections with these natural spaces so developing Your Love developing your care for these ecosystems you know they're so fantastic for all of the biodiversity that just mentioned but they're also fantastic spaces for us and so encourage you within the next few months to go out and visit one of these Wetlands that bird that just talked about red wing blackbird will be coming back to the greater Toronto area within the next two months and that's fantastic sight to see is when they all come back and they start kind of using and living these in these Wetland spaces once again all right so we've talked about lot today the last kind of piece that want to end on is talking little bit about climate change now we know that climate change is happening and we know that it can impact us in many ways and what's fantastic is that wetlands are some of the greatest greatest ecosystems for providing us with climate resiliency so keeping our planet strong in the face of climate change is something that Wetlands can do really well they can sink carbons they can store carbon so that it's not being released into the environment they can absorb lot of water so the in the event of extreme weather events like storms or flooding they can absorb lot of that water and ensure that it stays that it doesn't flood into nearby areas and they're also great stores of fresh water as well as we know fresh water is only getting more and more scarce we'll put link in the chat if you're interested in learning more about how wetlands are important for climate resiliency there's really great resource in there there's also really great resource that we'll put in the chat about how invasive species are impacted by climate change so as our climate is changing this is creating new and different Pathways for invasive species to proliferate and spread sometimes even into new environments without the direct Aid of humans so that's pretty interesting read if you have the time all right I've been sharing so much today we've talked about the Wetland ecosystems that's behind me we've talked about some of the biodiversity we can find there we've talked about two different invasive species grass carp and phragmites and how humans are involved in both the damage that they cause and their prevention and how they interact with all of the Native species that might live in these spaces here and we've talked little bit about how climate change interacts with all the different things that we've talked about today I've been talking so much thank you so much for listening if you're if you have more things to do you're feel free to tune out now we're gonna do some question we're gonna take some questions and do question and answer period and for those of you who are going to tune out just want to let you know that our next live stream is celebrating Earth Day and it's happening on April 21st for grades two to six so if you're interested feel free to go ahead and tune in then all right Sarah are there any questions in the chat hi Jasmine that was amazing thank you so much learned so much about different wetlands and Native and invasive species that's really great we do have question in the chat really great question from Nathan how do swamps marshes and bogs differ and does your current location fall into one of those categories that's that's really great question thanks so much Nathan for tuning in and for asking that question so there are lot of different Wetlands here in Ontario and they all kind of fall under these different classifications lot of the different Wetland spaces are classified differently based on how much standing water there is in these areas and how much decomposing matter there is as well it's really interesting that you mentioned bogs because when we're talking about climate change resiliency bogs and peat lands are actually some of the Wetland spaces that can sequester or store the most amount of carbon so that makes some really important for climate resiliency worldwide and there's some really fantastic peat bogs that are large that are facing development or removal and there's lot of great people that are advocating for these spaces the area behind me would classify as marsh mostly because of the amount of standing water that there is and also the Aquatic vegetation that we can see behind me as well awesome thank you Jasmine had question for you as well you mentioned getting out to go look at wetland in the coming months do you have wetland that you visited in the GTA that you would say is one that is your favorite yes thank you so much for asking to so my favorite space here in the GTA is Tommy Thompson Park and for those of you who don't know Tommy Thompson Park is located on the East End of Toronto stretches out into Lake Ontario there's some really fantastic Wetland spaces more than one on this peninsula that you can go to explore the biodiversity that we can find in wetlands and that's where will be in the spring and that's where will be when the Red Wing blackbirds come back and that's where I'll be listening to the sounds that they make that's amazing thank you very much Jasmine awesome thanks so much Sarah thanks everyone for tuning in and asking questions again our next live stream is on April 21st celebrating Earth Day for grades two to six so if you're interested feel free to tune in then encourage you all to get outside and connect with your local ecosystems whether that's wetland or any other space that you're interested in visiting all right bye everyone thank you so much