This weekend will determine if we have 6 more weeks of winter or an early spring. Which do you think it will be? Every year, crowds of people gather around the home of Wiarton Willie to wait with eager anticipation to see our famous groundhog predict our future.
Did you know:
- Groundhogs are rodents and are the largest animal in the squirrel family.
- Many groundhogs can be found living near fence lines, vegetable farms, corn fields, or fruit orchards.
- Groundhogs are omnivores, meaning that they eat meat and plants. Their common diet consists of grasses, berries, vegetables, grasshoppers, insects, and snails.
- Groundhogs hibernate (sleep) from October to late March – wouldn’t that be nice?!
- Groundhogs are burrowers. A burrow is a small tunnel or hole dug by a small animal. This is used for caring for their babies and sleeping/hibernating.
- When digging a burrow, groundhogs cam move over 700 pounds of dirt. Their burrows can have between 2-5 entrances and can be 5 feet below the ground.
- Not only can groundhogs climb trees to fetch their food, but they can also swim.
Groundhogs are amazing animals that are fantastic engineers. Your job is to become a groundhog engineer and design and build a burrow with at least 3 different chambers (rooms) and at least one entrance/exit. You are only able to use materials found in your recycling bin, some elastics, string, scissors and tape OR glue. Hint: You may want to start by drawing some blueprints out before you build so that you know what you want it to look like.
Will your groundhog predict an early spring or 6 more weeks of winter?