Scavenger Hunt 2: Waterloo is a Bee City
Welcome to the second of six scavenger hunts I will be hosting over the course of my residency with the City of Waterloo. If you don’t know about them yet, check out the intro video here. I’m looking forward to collaborating with you and seeing what you create!
Scavenger Hunt 2 launch date: 27 July 2021
Where to submit your work: Online through this form or in person at the Waterloo Visitor Centre.
The Challenge
The theme this week is Waterloo as a Bee City! What does this mean? The City of Waterloo (along with the City of Kitchener, Waterloo Region, and other municipalities across Canada) has made a commitment to create habitats which support pollinators (like bees), educate the community about why pollinators are so important, and celebrate pollinators. Aren’t pollinators just honey bees? Yes — but also many other bees (we have about 420 different kinds in Ontario!), and flies, butterflies, wasps, beetles, bats and hummingbirds too.
Did you know one third of the food we eat is directly related to pollination by bees?
So what’s the big deal? Pollinators like bees need specific habitats in order to thrive (think wildflowers, native flowering plants) and are greatly affected by pollution and pesticides. By committing to being a Bee City, Waterloo is taking steps to protect our pollinators!
This week’s challenge is to create a work about pollinators. You could look for pollinator habitats in our parks and on our trails, try to spot some pollinators, think about the different foods you eat and how they are a result of pollination (especially fruits, berries, field crops), look at how honey bees build their hives, or anything else you can think of. How many bees and insects can you find in the park? What are some wildflowers native to Ontario? What patterns to bees make as they fly from flower to flower? What is our role in a wider ecosystem which relies on bees and other insects to provide our food?
Bees are also collectors — try collecting yourself! Find some interesting or unusual objects in the park and arrange them in a formation. Collect different paper and images and create a collage. Collect photographs showing the journey from flower to flower, from a bee’s perspective.
I’ll be sharing what I’m making over the coming days. I’ve written another post here with ideas about how you can use different materials you might have around. Remember that I will be using these submissions to create collages, so they don’t necessarily need to look like conventional “finished” artworks.
If you have questions for me, you can send them to cultureplan@waterloo.ca.
Good luck and happy creating!
— Lucy
Prize Draw
There will be a prize draw at the end of the residency for everyone who submits responses to the scavenger hunts. Prizes include two $25 Uptown Dollars to spend at businesses in Uptown, Create Waterloo swag, and pin badges. Winners will be announced at the end of the residency.
Learn More About Pollinators!
“In Ontario, 32 of our economically important crops are pollinated by bees and other animals. Worldwide the estimated economic value of crops that are reliant on pollination is $690 billion per year.”
