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For national science week I was commissioned by the city council to create a game with the focus of Bumble Bees. I teamed up with the city Rangers who developed and created the game and I designed and mad the game come to life. The game will be played by schoolchildren ages 9 and above in the start of March. Here are some photos of the development and experiments in creating the game.
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The decline of bees is a threat to our own existence. 1/3 of the food we consume is dependent not just on honey bees, but bumble bees and native pollinators. Kurzgesagt produced this very informative and clear video highlighting the effects of the decline of bees as well as the dangers they face.
Of course we're talking about Pollination! Many insects pollinate our flowers and crops including butterflies wasps and moths to name a few but bees and in particular honey bees are relied on heavily in commercial farming to pollinate the majority of our fruits, vegetables and grain, it is estimated that without the honey bee up to 1 third of the food produced globally would not be available without the pollination process provided by bees. The number of bees has been dwindling in unprecedented numbers and if drastic drops in numbers of bees continues we could see prices of fresh produce sky rocket over the next few years and eventually disappear from our supermarkets! Without bee's we can say bye bye to so much of the food we have just now including but not excluselvy: Watermelon, apples, oranges, pears, strawberries, turnips, coffee, cocoa, carrots, beans, plums, peaches, vanilla, onion, cashews, palm oil... and so the list goes on! Pollination is necessary to form healthy seeds and fruit and cross-pollination occurs when when a bee (or another pollinator) lands on a flower and transfers the pollen from one flower to another, some plants can self pollinate others rely on pollination from other agents such as insects, the wind and sometimes water. Bee pollination occurs when a bee lands on a flower and the pollen sticks to their furry bodies and legs transferred from the male part of the flower and is transferred to the female part of the flower, the flower then uses the pollen grain and transfers it into the female part of the flower called the ovule to create embryos which will eventually become seeds and when the flower dies and starts to decompose the seed will sow and start a new plant. interesting fact: In some practices of pollination people take on the role of pollinator. This is a time consuming and expensive method but is actually fairly common practice in some countries with struggling bee populations! This artificial form of pollinating means using a paintbrush to add pollen to individual flowers. In China there is a lack of bees because of excessive uses of pesticides and a lack of natural habitats for our bees means farmers now rely on this artificial pollination to maintain their crops, hand pollination is often used in apple and pear farming but is becoming more common in various types of crop bees usually pollinate. Check out this video which shows the intricate dance of pollination! |
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