Who Lives Here? : Investigating and Sorting Schoolyard Insects

This activity is designed for students to develop skills in observation, questioning, critical thinking and writing through the use of bugs collected in a pit trap. The first graders will be able to describe with words or pictures how they made a pit trap. They will also sort the bugs into groups according to visible characteristics. During this activity students will review the concept of how to tell an insect from other bugs. They will also review the importance of recording their observations in science. Vocabulary words to be reviewed or discovered are: collect/collection, pit, journal, insect, characteristics. Finally, students will practice graphing.

This lesson was written for a first grade class of 24 in the fall. They will have had some experience with writing/drawing in a nature journal and have been introduced to phenology. Many of the students were introduced to insects in Kindergarten when they raised Monarch butterflies. This lesson will be integrated with our math curriculum when we make our graph of bugs we collect. In the spring, we study life cycles in a growing and changing unit so we will revisit insects then. This lesson could also be held off until the spring and then students could make their own graphs instead of doing a class graph.

The lesson will need to be taught in two parts. The first part involves making the pit traps and recording the process in our nature journals. The second part will be 2-3 days later when we go out to collect our traps and discover what is in them. Each part will take about 30-40 minutes.

Materials

student nature journals and pencils
16 oz plastic cups for each team
garden trowels for each team
plastic food container with lid or Ziploc sandwich bag for each team
plastic spoons
Optional : small Petri dishes, large graph paper

Lesson

1. Take students outside with their nature journals and a pencil. Tell them that today we are going to learn to do something that scientists called entomologists do in their work. We will need our journals and a pencil to record what we do. Explain that when scientists want to investigate bugs they may have a problem - no bugs. How might they solve that problem? Students will offer various solutions. Tell them that today they will learn how to make a pit trap. They will work in a small team. We will leave the traps outside for a few days and then go back to collect our bugs. Ask students where they think we could find the most bugs in our schoolyard. (We will settle on the area near our building where there are bushes, flowering plants, trees, sun and shade.) Explain that we don't want to find our cups full of rainwater. How can we make sure that doesn't happen? (put them in sheltered areas underneath bushes or plants) You will need to decide how many students you want in a group. I suggest 2-3.
2. Demonstrate how to make the trap. Using a garden trowel, dig a hole as deep and as big around as the plastic cup you have. (16 oz Solo cups work well.) You will need to set the cup in the hole and then fill dirt back up to and around the cup so the top lip of the cup is level with the ground. Try not to get dirt in the cup. Ask what will happen when bugs come walking along. Why will they be trapped? (the sides of the cup are slippery)
3. Give each team a cup and trowel. Tell them to look for a spot where they think there are a lot of bugs passing through. Remind them that we don't want the cup to fill with water so a protected area would be best. My rule is that the students have to be able to see me and hear me from wherever they are. When student teams finish their traps they can raise their hands and you will check their traps.
4. Students will open their nature journals to today's page. (We write the date, time, and a weather clue at the top.) They need to draw their pit trap and write or describe with pictures where their pit trap is so they can find it in 2-3 days when we come back out. * The teacher may want to jot down the locations of the traps just in case.
5. Tell students that our job now is to wait. We will come back in 2-3 days to collect our bugs. *If you have done science experiments with the class you may want to write some hypotheses concerning what you will find.
6. On the day you want to go back out to collect the traps, read a book about graphing to the class. I like Just Graph It! by Sandi Hill and published by Creative Teaching Press. Ask the students what they want to know about the bugs they have collected. What you graph will depend upon your students and how far you want to take this. It could be as simple as Insects/Non Insects. It could be Beetles/Ants/Pill Bugs/Worms/Spiders.
7. Take the students outside to collect their traps. Pour their bugs into a Ziploc bag or smaller clear plastic container and then bring them into the classroom. Students will look at their bugs and decide how they can be sorted. Each team member should choose a different bug and draw it in their nature journals. As a class, decide on the details of your graph. Label the axes of the graph and then students can come up to mark an X where their bug would go. Students will then write or draw their results in their nature journals.

I have never done this type of activity with students before. I am expecting that many of them will enjoy it immensely. It may be difficult for the first graders to dig the holes but if we go out early in the morning or after it has rained, the ground will be softer. Depending on the makeup of the group, it may work better if the class works together to plant 3 or 4 traps. The activity can also begin in the classroom if that works better with the specific group of children. If students are afraid of the bugs, you can refrigerate them for 10 - 15 min to slow them down before handling them. Plastic spoons would also be a great tool for moving bugs without having to touch them. You can also make your graph outside by putting each bug in a small Petri dish and then setting the different kinds of bugs in lines on a graph drawn in sand or a graph drawn on pavement with sidewalk chalk. If you are making a more detailed graph, give each team a chart showing pictures and names of different kinds of bugs so they can identify what they have. A good example can be found in the Field Notes in the back of the book: Under One Rock, Bugs, Slugs and other Ughs by Anthony D. Fredericks. Then take a picture of the graph with your digital camera. When you are finished, let the bugs go where you found them.

I will observe students at work with their traps and I will also check their nature journals afterward to make sure they have completed all parts of the activity.

K.IV.B.2. Simple ways to group living things
1.I.B.1. Observe, describe, measure, compare and contrast