Students and staff at the Tantramar Regional High School in Sackville, New Brunswick have been working for the past five years to construct and manage a 16-hectare (40-acre) freshwater wetland and laboratory facility on the school’s property. Known as the Tantramar Wetlands Centre, the students—with help from partner organizations—are providing hands-on wetlands education experiences for thousands of visiting students, teachers and members of the public.

This fall students learned the skill of banding migratory waterfowl at the Tantramar Wetlands Centre. Photo: Chris Porter

"It's been great rewarding fun," says Chris Porter, project director for the centre. He says students from across New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island have visited the centre and its outdoor classroom. The school’s staff and crew of 30 to 40 high school students called “Wetheads” have developed the salt marsh education hub with a classroom, wetlab, canoe and walking trails. The centre provides in-depth natural history education, ecological monitoring and hands-on conservation work for K-12 students and teachers each spring and fall. The students and staff are joined by wetlands professionals from Ducks Unlimited, the Canadian Wildlife Service and the New Brunswick Wildlife Federation, who assist with the centre's programs.

This fall some 800 school children and teachers learned about the skill of bird banding and its role in monitoring bird populations throughout North America as part of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan.

“For a lot of kids their first experience of a wetland is holding a bird,” Porter says. “Coupled with the knowledge they gain about migratory bird populations it brings some reality to the plight of water fowl.”
To find out more information about programs offered this spring visit the Tantramar Wetlands Centre at www.weted.com.

—Andi Rierden

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