In early November, the Wheatley River Improvement Group visited the grade 5/6 class at École Saint-Augustin to teach the students how to build bug hotels. Bug hotels are structures that provide shelter and protection for insects and can be particularly helpful in areas where natural habitat has been depleted or lost (such as after a hurricane!). These structures can be made from just about anything you might have in your recycling bin, so long as it provides a dry roof, and the rooms of the hotel can be separated easily by using empty toilet paper rolls! We took the students outside to collect a variety of natural materials such as dried leaves and flowers, lichen, moss, bark, hollow grasses, pine cones, rocks and twigs. Back inside, they carefully stuffed and stacked the materials into their structures (we used plastic milk cartons with one side cut out) so that each of the hotel rooms provided different textures and spaces. Finally, the students took their beautiful bug hotel creations home to hang up in their yards or near gardens! What a fun and creative way to learn about the importance of insects…