Insects offer an array of teaching opportunities for all students from pre-school right through high school. When teaching children entomology there are some questions that teachers, parents, and schools need to ask;
1. Why should we use insects in the classroom?
2. What can we teach and learn from them?
3. What insects should we use?
4. How do we get started (Matthew, R.Flage. L. Mathews,J 1997)
Insects are a natural match as children are fascinated about the world around them. Insects provide stimulating material with which teachers and parents can feed on that curiosity. So why don’t we use insects in the classroom? Is it a matter of attitude, training and or background, or is it that media has played a role in humans considering ‘insects/bugs’ as repulsive?
There are many children’s books that show a positive spin on insects such as Charlotte and her web, however on the other side there are stories of killer bees attacking us, ant’s that will eat anything in their way even humans . To put icing on the cake Peter Jacksons movie’ King Kong’, portrays weta as giant man-eating creatures causing our brains to go into over drive. In the term of vocabulary, we hear the words such as ‘yuck’, ‘disgusting’ and or we need to kill them all! In relation to when people talk about insects.
Even though we have been exploring the planet for many hundreds of years there are still a large number of insects that have yet to be found. Scientist find insects interesting, however teachers and even parents find them intimidating.
Most children are concrete learners, able to think hypothetically only when given concrete examples. Formal thinking does not develop until somewhere between the ages of 14 and adulthood. Thus, scientific theories and concepts can seem highly abstract and abstruse for many students, even in high school and college. It makes good education sense that the more hands-on opportunities and real-life examples one can provide in the science classroom, the better. In this, insects excel (Matthews, Flage & Matthews 1997)
With insects being small and needing little room, they are easy to look after and provide a visual cue in learning. They are also a useful tool if a teacher doesn’t want parents to be in the classroom all the time. I was told of a teacher in Nelson who has a Wellington tree weta in the classroom just at the entrance .He has found that the mums are in and out of the classroom very quickly compared to when he didn’t have the weta. Funny thing with that is that weta are nocturnal so the parents’ lack of knowledge about weta has them scared.
So you have gotten over the fact that insects are yucky and you want to teach your students, friends, or children about insects. So where do you get information from?
Google has many amazing web sites with insects units already made up. A number are American however, it isn’t hard to adapt these to fit the New Zealand curriculum. Auckland Museum, Massey University, and Landcare research have online visual keys that help adults and children to identify insects.
A great resource to assist any teacher in the classroom is a parent whom may already work in the field of entomology. The Department of Conservation not only has an amazing web site, they also have staff that would be able to come into your school to talk to the students. In addition, Lincoln University have a number of experts that would be able to assist with identification and or provide assistance.
So if you are a parent or a teacher of even a student in entomology take a risk go into a school and teach children about insects , they will not only enjoy it but it will stimulate their learning about these amazing creatures .
Robert W. Matthews, Lynda R. Flage, and Janice R. Matthews(1997)INSECTS AS TEACHING TOOLS IN PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION;
e-mail: rmatthew@uga.cc.uga.edu
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/resources/research-curation/projects/chalcidoids/pdf/MattheFlMa997.pdf
here are some links to find information about insects:
Kiwi conservation:http://www.kcc.org.nz/
Information for teachers/parents; http://www.doc.govt.nz/getting-involved/for-teachers/conservation-education-resources/
Auckland Muesum (Education) http://www.aucklandmuseum.com/9/education
Guide to soi invertebratesl; http://soilbugs.massey.ac.nz/
Landcare insect identification; http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/research/biosystematics/invertebrates/invertid/
More ot follow left my pen drive at home so will post it tomorrow
Department of Entomology, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602;
