Climate change impacts all of us. Wildfire smoke causes adverse health effects. Severe storms result in infrastructure damage, habitat loss and costly repairs. Invasive species bring new diseases, devastating bat populations. Around the world, impacts of the changing climate are becoming more evident. 

Canada’s efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change, efforts often referred to as “greening,” offers both risk and opportunity, as production, consumption, and investment patterns change in response to global and national climate action plans. 
Conservation is a key part of these efforts. It leverages and preserves natural habitats and ecosystems, which supports both mitigation (as carbon sinks) and adaptation (as nature-based solutions). For example, plants in a preserved or restored wetland absorb and store greenhouse gases while reducing the risk of floodwater reaching nearby homes. Trees provide shade and lower air temperatures during the summer. 

Bats are an essential component of healthy ecosystems and provide important control of agricultural and forest insect pests. Two species of bats are federally endangered, and many bat species in Canada are considered to be “at risk” due to habitat loss and degradation associated with climate change and pollution. 

A bat house is a structure designed to provide bats with a warm, dry and safe summer roost site. Similar to birdhouses, bat boxes are wooden boxes that can be installed on a high structure like a tall post or a building. The installation of bat boxes to attract bats can promote backyard biodiversity or help control insects (particularly mosquitoes). They are often used as an offsetting measure for habitat loss associated with infrastructure projects, ensuring that any evicted bats will still have an appropriate roosting site. They are an excellent option for increasing summer roosting habitat where natural features are limited or where bats are already in a human-made roost. 

Tracking the use of bat boxes is a key part of the conservation program. By monitoring the populations of the bat colonies using the box, it is possible to evaluate the health of the colonies and species across Canada. It also helps better understand the requirements for building and designing bat boxes. 

Your task is to build a device that can track the number of visits a bat box will receive over a summer season. The device must: 

It should also be weatherproof, be easy to use and install by a non-engineer.

A few examples of bat boxes are provided in the files.