Upload
others
View
1
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
BioBlitz: Nature Detectives Pre-visit activity at school
Resources needed:
6x sets of Invertebrate pictures (cut out) for sorting activity (for a class of 30) 6x Classification flowchart for key activity ID guides for extension activity
Introducing invertebrates
Introduce invertebrates as animals that do not have a backbone
Does anyone know the name of the bone that goes all the way down our backs? (Backbone or spine)
Do you know any animals that do not have one of these? (They may already know soft-bodied invertebrates such as worms, snails, slugs).
There are lots of animals that don’t have a backbone such as butterflies, bees, spiders, crabs, jellyfish and octopuses. These are called invertebrates.
Explain that today they are going to be sorting invertebrates into groups using their similarities and differences
There are so many different animals on Earth, that to be able to understand them we need to be able to sort them into different groups. Today we are going to sort out some common invertebrates that you might find in the UK, by looking at their similarities and differences. This is called classification.
Sorting activity
Hand out all the pictures of the invertebrates and ask students to look at their features and think about how they are similar or different
What features can you see on the animals’ bodies?
What do some have that others don’t? (E.g. wings, different colours, different shapes, different number of legs).
Divide the class into groups five and hand out a set of pictures to each group
Ask the students to group the pictures into piles on the tables using their own criteria (e.g. colour, shape, size etc.) . NB: There is no right or wrong answer to this - they can sort them however they like as long as they are consistent—e.g. if sorting by colour they must put all the brown ones together and all the green ones together etc.
Using a key
Introduce the classification key and model to the students how to use it
Now you have sorted the animals into groups in your own way, let’s sort them out the way that real scientists do, using something called a key.
P.T.O.
A key is a list of questions with yes or no answers. You must start at the beginning and fol-low the arrows depending on whether you answer yes or no. Eventually you will get to the end and it will tell you what group your animal belongs to.
Get the students to work as a group to practice using the key and work out which invertebrate group each animal belongs to
Go through the answers as a class (see answer sheet)
What are the key features of each group? (Insects have 6 legs. Arachnids have eight legs. Crustaceans have a hard exoskeleton. Myriapods have many legs. Molluscs usually have a shell.)
Plenary
Explain to the students that when they come to the Zoo they will be searching for invertebrates in the Zoo grounds and will be using keys to group the animals.
Explain that they will also be identifying exactly what type of invertebrates they find, using something called an ID guide. Show the ID guide to the students if time.
Optional Extension:
Take students into the school grounds to look for invertebrates and use the key to classify the different invertebrates they find. They can also use the ID guide to identify the invertebrates species. They can then keep a note of what they see so they can compare their results to what they see in the wildflower patch at the zoo.
1 2 1
3 4
5
6
7 8
9 10
11 12
1) Ant — Insect
2) Wasp — Insect
3) Fly — Insect
4) True bug —Insect
5) Butterfly — Insect
6) Grasshopper —
Insect
8) Snail — Mollusc
7) Spider —
Arachnid
10) Woodlouse—
Crustacean
9) Centipede —
Myriapod
12) Worm
11) Slug—Mollusc
Answers
Snails
Woodlice
Insect larvae
Legs:
8
BioBlitz
Nature Detectives
Body divided into two
parts– head & abdomen
Long thin legs
One body part —
round or oval
Harvestmen
Body divided into many seg-
ments, 7 pairs of legs, oval
body, can roll into a ball
Centipede
Long thin body divided into
segments, at least 15 pairs of
legs
Millipede Long thin body
with 2 pairs of leg
on each segment
Slugs
Earthworm
Soft, slimy body and hard
coiled shell
Soft, slimy body but does not
have a hard coiled shell
Long thin body divid-
ed into segments
Most insects reproduce by laying eggs. The young
that hatch from these eggs are either larvae (looks
different from adults) or nymphs (smaller versions
of the adult)
Butterfly & Moth
True fly larva (maggot)
Beetle larva
Mollusc
Worms
Myriapods
Crustacean
Arachnid
Long antennae
See-through wings
Most have narrow
waist
Bees are often hairy,
whereas wasps and
ants are not hairy.
Ants usually
do not have
wings
Bees, wasps and ants Butterflies and moths
Long antennae
Two wings on
each side, usually col-
Butterfly— usually flies during the day, rest
with their wings closed
Moth—usually fly at night, feathery antennae,
rest with wings open
Beetles
Cricket, grasshoppers, earwigs
True flies
True bugs
Legs:
6
Pincer– shaped
Wing cases meet in a
straight line to make
a T shape
Hard forewing cases to
protect wings
Wings usually meet in an
X– or Y– shape
Not true for aphids
Large eyes
Short antennae
One pair of see-
through wings
Crickets have long
antennae
Grasshoppers have
short antennae
Earwigs have a pair of
pincer-shaped clasps
Legs:
6
Legs:
6
Legs:
6
Legs:
6
Legs:
6
Insects