Protecting Pollinators with a Bee Counter

Automated Bee Counter

Count the number of pollinators that visit your monitoring station. Whenever a pollinator lands on the touch sensor, all the pixels of the LED Ring are turned on, and we increase the visitor count on the micro:bit LEDs by one.

Big Idea

Did you know that bees, butterflies and moths are special nature helpers called pollinators? They help plants make food we eat like fruits and veggies.

In this lesson, we’ll learn about the role pollinators play in our ecosystem. We will also find out why some pollinators are in danger and how we can help.

Take Action!

In the ‘Take Action’ section of this lesson, we are going to build a bee monitoring station. This bee monitoring station is equipped with a counter so we can see how many pollinators visit and track their population over time.

We’ll also learn how wild flower gardens can create a safe haven for our pollinators. Take a look around and see if your school or community is home to a pollinator garden.

The goal of this project is to understand how pollinators and plants interact as a community to form an ecosystem and what we can do as humans to help protect pollinator populations.

Tools:

• 1 x Climate Action Kit
• 1 x micro:bit
• Computer with access to Microsoft MakeCode