ULethbridge Discovery Days - Birds of Prey Centre

On August 18^th, the U of L branch of HPI volunteered at the Birds of Prey Center’s Insect Discovery Days! The event took place from 11am to 3pm, with other interactive displays including catching aerial and aquatic insects, as well as being able to hold hissing cockroaches.

The HPI booth consisted of a variety of parasite samples, including local samples like wood ticks and exotic samples like the human Ascaris worm. Although only a few of our displayed parasites actually infected insects (including zombie ants and crickets with horsehair worm), our scary invertebrates were more than creepy enough to be talked about.

As an interactive component of our table, we designed a parasite operation game, where players had to carefully remove an assortment of parasites. Plenty of kids and parents found themselves loving the game and learning about parasites that affect humans throughout the world. Although millions of people worldwide are infected with parasites that cause diseases such as malaria, being in Canada we often don’t know about many of them. It was a great opportunity for us to talk to people from Southern Alberta about parasites they may or may not encounter during their life.

We also got the chance to browse around the Birds of Prey Center, taking the time to look at as many cool owls, hawks, falcons and eagles as we could! We want to thank the Birds of Prey Center for hosting us and HPI Calgary for letting us borrow some samples to display! Thanks also to Micky Ahn, Cam Goater, Kip Jay and Jeremy Benson for volunteering for the event!