STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION: PRIMARY
RETURN TO INVERTEBRATE EXPLORATIONS
ENGAGEMENT
Have you ever found a fly in you soup? A worm on your ear of corn? A beetle in your flour? Humans are pestered by bugs in our food, on our bodies, on the animals and plants we care for and basically every where else on he planet! Here are several things we can consider to engage students interest in this exploration:
• Read selections of Diary of a Fly
• Find examples of food that has signs of bug infestation and ask students to comment about what caused the food to be spoiled.
Grain beetles in rice
Ask students why we might be interested to know something about insects based from their own experience and from the example/s used above.
Ladybug Introduction
The previous can be omitted in deference to just focusing on Ladybugs or another insect.
Ladybug, Ladybug
Title:Ladybug, Ladybug - Bedtime
Posted on: April 27, 2018By: Elizabeth Wrobel
Ladybug, ladybug, crawling up and down,
Starting over again and turning back around.
Once more my finger you crawl across,
Ladybug, ladybug, are you lost?
EXPLORATION
The teacher should remind students of their comments about the importance of insects and other tiny creatures in order to introduce the next exploration. In order to understand how we might prevent the negative impacts of insects and accentuate the positive attributes of insects like bees, ladybugs and many insects that prey on noxious insects, we must know something about what we are looking at!
Part I
Depending on the age group you might be dealing with, select any of the following organisms for exploration:
• Mealworm adults
• Sowbugs
• Ladybugs
• Crickets
• Roach nymphs
You can make an invertebrate tongs by bending a piece of plastic and gluing on two pieces of foam. This way you can pick up your creatures without harming them.
Students can also make or use an insect pooter. This device allows the pickup o tiny insects that may be fragile.
1. Provide students with a petri plate and a few organisms and a hand lens. Ask students to observe their insect/bug.
2. Provide drawing paper and pencils to sketch the details of their creature.
3. When they have completed their observations and drawing, provide a biological description. Good diagrams are provided in pdf as follows: Beetle, Sowbug, Crickets, Roach nymph, Ladybird Beetles
4. Have students se what they missed in their observations and invite them to look again to see details.
Drawing Option
Children can learn how to draw an insect using a step-by-step guide, such as shown below,
or any number of picture guides such as the Draw Insects with Letters method.
This example from How to Draw Icky Bugs uses the letters
"O" for the abdomen, "C" for the head, two "G"s for the eyes,
"J" for the antennae, "Z"s for legs and an H to divide the wings and thorax.
Assessment
Observation is the key element here with recording of data by drawing and labeling a component. To assess this kind of learning there are two basic forms, 1) Observational check sheets, and 2) Evaluation of the drawn observations. See these examples: OBSERVATIONAL CHECK SHEET and DRAWING RUBRIC.
Materials List for Part I:
• Insects or invertebrates in Petri Plates
• Hand lenses
• Sketching Paper
• Pencils/ Colored Pencils
Part II
1. Give students some starch peanuts and invite them to make their own insect. Show how then can stick together the peanuts by dampening one end and sticking it to another peanut. Starch peanuts are used in packing and are made from sorghum or corn. They are non toxic and the food value of the grain is removed, so it is a perfect biodegradable product.
2. Although these starch peanuts are non-toxic, dampening them should be done with a wet sponge. An adult might make a decision to use their tongue, but students should be instructed to use the sponge technique.
3. The parts can be named and the basic functions can be discussed:
Head: sensing light (compound eyes), sensing smell and touch (antennae), sensing taste (mouthparts [palps])
Thorax: Movement: Muscles for legs and wings
Abdomen: Respiration (holes [spiracles] on sides), reproduction (ovipositor) and digestion (gut inside abdomen)
4. Students can color different parts with a felt marker.
Assessment
The outcome of this exploration is to approximate the simple parts of the insect observed. Assessment can be a simple (yes/no) determining if the student has made a model with the required three parts, or it can be more specific and check-off every important feature that can be observed. In lady bugs, for example, antenna and mouthparts are small, but visible. A rubric could be used or a simple counting of each part that is modeled correctly can also suffice.
Materials List for Part II
• Starch Peanuts
• Source of water
• Small sponges
• Colored felt pens
Part III
Find the appropriate extension for this series of explorations by finding a PLT or PW activity:
Project Learning Tree/Project Wild Extensions
PLT, p. 23. Peppermint Beetle
PLT, p. 105. The Fallen Log
PLT, p. 108 Nature's Recyclers
PLT, p. 194. Web of Life
PLT, p. 197. School Yard Safari
PLT, p. 200, Are Vacant Lots Vacant?
PLT, p. 263, The Closer You Look.
PW, p. 4, Grasshopper Gravity
PW, p. 12, Interview a spider
PW, p. 34, Spider web Geometry
PW, p. 88, Ants on a Twig