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All adventuresFifteen minutes, one square metre

Backyard Bug Safari

Mark out one square metre of grass, dirt or garden, then count every kind of creature living in it for fifteen minutes. Most people find more than ten. Some find thirty.

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Backyard Bug Safari

Read the full instructions and gather your supplies before starting.

Step 1 of 6

Pick a patch. Long grass beats short grass; the edge of a garden beats the middle of a lawn. Mark a square about one big step on each side.

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Activity timer

Set the time from your instructions.

Time20 min
You geta species count
DifficultyEasy
SectionExploring

This one is all yours

Nothing sharp, nothing hot, nowhere far. Tell someone what you're up to, then go ahead and do it on your own.

What to do there

6 steps. Tap one when it's done.

Why it's like that

A single square metre of healthy soil holds more living things than there are people in Sarnia, most of them too small to see. The ones you can see are the top of that pile, and they're only there because everything underneath is working.

Lambton County twist

Lambton is at the northern edge of the Carolinian zone, so bugs that are common here, like some of the big beetles and butterflies, don't live much farther north in Canada.