Insect Scrapbook

SCIENCE CONCEPT:

When learning about new creatures in our environment it is important to have varying experiences to enrich ones study of them. In the study of insects small children will be fascinated by their many varieties and stages.

STUDENT OBJECTIVE:

The children will have the opportunity to create scrapbooks of insects of all types. In this way they will gain a greater awareness of how many species of insects there are in the world.

OVERVIEW:

There are more than 800,000 species of insects and hundreds more are discovered every year. Most insects have thin wings and must beat their wings rapidly in order to get the lift they need. Bee's wings move forward, backward and up and down. Bees flap their wings over 100 times a second.

PREPARATION TIME:

20 minutes.

LESSON TIME:

30 minutes.

TEACHER PREP:

Collect old magazines with colored pictures. You can ask the parents in your class for donations - especially National Geographic and other nature magazines.

WORDS TO KNOW:

insect

flight

wingbeats

larvae

acrobat

TEACHER TEXT:

Insects were the first creatures to develop wings. Although many insects now spend the greater part of their lives grounded as larvae, they nearly all take flight as adults when it comes time to mate and spread their kind. Wings are so fundamental to insect-hood that they are not mere modified limbs, like bat or bird wings, but part of the insect's back. Their wings are a basic structure of its external skeleton, delicately strutted with passages for air and blood.

Insects simultaneously twist and oscillate their wings; this allows them to hover or even fly backwards. Their wingbeats generally take the form of ellipses and figure eights. A dragonfly beats its pairs of long, slender wings independently, the front ones rising as the rear ones fall. Despite this primitive equipment, the dragonfly is still the deftest of flying acrobats.

Web Hosting Provided By The National Business Aviation Association.

Explore Space ... Not Drugs!
Hear what astronauts have to say about staying drug-free.
Last modified: Sat Nov 15 13:00:54 PST 1997