Insects, Arachnids, & Annelids
Africanized Honey Bees on the Move: Lesson Plans
From the University of Arizona's Africanized Honey Bee Education Project, this site includes lesson plans for K-12 teachers on issues such as pollination, the importance of bees for agriculture, bee identification, honeybee communication, bee life cycles, cultural attitudes towards bees, and more.
The Amateur Entomologists' Society's Bug Club for Young Entomologists
Although many of the events and activities on this site are available only to UK students, it nevertheless offers useful information for the care of classroom insects and arachnids, as well as games, a kids' newsletter, and a forum for educators to share insights regarding invertebrate education.
From Belgium, this site bills itself as "a repository and directory of arachnological information on the Internet." With more than 1000 links, AHP provides a host of resources for students K-university. Included subject areas: primary education; courses & educational projects; museum & zoo exhibitions; arachnologists' research home pages; arachnophobia; myths, stories, poems, & art; taxonomy, classification, & DNA databases; publications, databases, & societies; conferences; collections; and books & reports.
Students learn about the benefits of spiders, as well as their habitats and life cycles, how and why they spin webs, and more in this comprehensive unit from the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory in Austin, TX. Also available in Spanish.
Using Live Insects in Elementary Classrooms for Early Lessons in Life
Developed at the University of Arizona, this site provides online curriculum and resources for hands-on instruction. It includes 20 lesson plans, instructional sheets on insect natural history, care sheets for raising insects in the classroom, and a bibliography that compliments the lesson plans.
The Yuckiest Site on the Internet's Worm World Teachers' Corner
This popular site highlights classroom and online activities related to the behavior, life cycle, classification, conservation, and habitat of annelids.
The Yuckiest Site on the Internet's Teaching with Bugs
A host of activities for the classroom include: building an ant farm; mapping insect behavior; determining whether cockroaches can learn; building model bugs; studying metamorphosis; learning classification; mounting specimens, and studying insect habitats.
Africanized Honey Bees on the Move: Lesson Plans
From the University of Arizona's Africanized Honey Bee Education Project, this site includes lesson plans for K-12 teachers on issues such as pollination, the importance of bees for agriculture, bee identification, honeybee communication, bee life cycles, cultural attitudes towards bees, and more.
The Amateur Entomologists' Society's Bug Club for Young Entomologists
Although many of the events and activities on this site are available only to UK students, it nevertheless offers useful information for the care of classroom insects and arachnids, as well as games, a kids' newsletter, and a forum for educators to share insights regarding invertebrate education.
From Belgium, this site bills itself as "a repository and directory of arachnological information on the Internet." With more than 1000 links, AHP provides a host of resources for students K-university. Included subject areas: primary education; courses & educational projects; museum & zoo exhibitions; arachnologists' research home pages; arachnophobia; myths, stories, poems, & art; taxonomy, classification, & DNA databases; publications, databases, & societies; conferences; collections; and books & reports.
This activity provides a basic introduction to the Scientific Method. Students observe the crickets, formulate a research question, and predict an outcome. They then collect and measure data, and analyze the final results. Created by the Oregon Zoo.
Classification of Plants & Animals
Introduce your students to basic taxonomic principles using this set of classroom exercises with everyday materials, developed by the Franklin Institute Online.
More than 4,500 schools across North America participate in the free Journey North Program, which allows them to track various migratory species in their own localities, and report their findings online to other students in the U.S. and Canada. The Monarch Butterfly Migration Project is used in thousands of classrooms to track the annual Fall movement of the butterflies from Canada and the U.S. to Mexico. The site provides weekly updates, discussion topics, and activities that teach kids about the migration and life cycle of these beautiful insects.
Teacher/Parent Resource Materials from the University of Kentucky Department of Entomology
Included on this site are three activities for the classroom ("Flour Beetles," "Choose Your Insect," and "Termite Trails"), a semi-annual "Entomology Newsletter for Teachers" featuring lesson plan ideas, facts and anecdotes, and recommended readings, and a 4-unit "Introduction to Insect Collecting."
Yuckiest Site on the Internet's Roaches Revealed
Find out more than you ever wanted to know about roach anatomy and various species, and get a "day in the life" snapshot to find out what it's like to be a roach. There's even a sound file of roaches for the non-squeamish, as well as a fun-filled list of roach facts, and a quiz to see how much you learned.
The Yuckiest Site on the Internet's Teaching with Bugs
A host of activities for the classroom include: building an ant farm; mapping insect behavior; determining whether cockroaches can learn; building model bugs; studying metamorphosis; learning classification; mounting specimens, and studying insect habitats.
The Yuckiest Site on the Internet's Worm World Teachers' Corner
This popular site highlights classroom and online activities related to the behavior, life cycle, classification, conservation, and habitat of annelids.
Africanized Honey Bees on the Move: Lesson Plans
From the University of Arizona's Africanized Honey Bee Education Project, this site includes lesson plans for K-12 teachers on issues such as pollination, the importance of bees for agriculture, bee identification, honeybee communication, bee life cycles, cultural attitudes towards bees, and more.
Ants are social insects, exhibiting intricate behavioral relationships within their colonies. This activity examines these relationships by allowing students to study behavior within a colony, as well as between colonies.
From Belgium, this site bills itself as "a repository and directory of arachnological information on the Internet." With more than 1000 links, AHP provides a host of resources for students K-university. Included subject areas: primary education; courses & educational projects; museum & zoo exhibitions; arachnologists' research home pages; arachnophobia; myths, stories, poems, & art; taxonomy, classification, & DNA databases; publications, databases, & societies; conferences; collections; and books & reports.
Bugscope is a new educational outreach project of the World Wide Laboratory. The primary goal of the Bugscope project is to demonstrate that relatively low cost, sustainable access to a scanning electron microscope can be made available to classrooms. Participating classrooms will have the opportunity to control an Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope to image insects at high magnification. Students and teachers control the microscope using web browsers from their classroom computers. The microscope is located at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois at Urban-Champaign.
Classification of Plants & Animals
Introduce your students to basic taxonomic principles using this set of classroom exercises with everyday materials, developed by the Franklin Institute Online.
More than 4,500 schools across North America participate in the free Journey North Program, which allows them to track various migratory species in their own localities, and report their findings online to other students in the U.S. and Canada. The Monarch Butterfly Migration Project is used in thousands of classrooms to track the annual Fall movement of the butterflies from Canada and the U.S. to Mexico. The site provides weekly updates, discussion topics, and activities that teach kids about the migration and life cycle of these beautiful insects.
Teacher/Parent Resource Materials from the University of Kentucky Department of Entomology
Included on this site are three activities for the classroom ("Flour Beetles," "Choose Your Insect," and "Termite Trails"), a semi-annual "Entomology Newsletter for Teachers" featuring lesson plan ideas, facts and anecdotes, and recommended readings, and a 4-unit "Introduction to Insect
The Yuckiest Site on the Internet's Teaching with Bugs
A host of activities for the classroom include: building an ant farm; mapping insect behavior; determining whether cockroaches can learn; building model bugs; studying metamorphosis; learning classification; mounting specimens, and studying insect habitats.
The Yuckiest Site on the Internet's Worm World Teachers' Corner
This popular site highlights classroom and online activities related to the behavior, life cycle, classification, conservation, and habitat of annelids.
Developed by the University of Arizona's Center for Insect Science Education Outreach, these lessons provide integrated, hands-on, inquiry-based activities, and include both research project design and data analysis techniques. Current units include: aphids as a model for introducing concepts of population ecology; and aphids, ladybugs, lacewings, mantids, and predator-prey relationships.
Africanized Honey Bees on the Move: Lesson Plans
From the University of Arizona's Africanized Honey Bee Education Project, this site includes lesson plans for K-12 teachers on issues such as pollination, the importance of bees for agriculture, bee identification, honeybee communication, bee life cycles, cultural attitudes towards bees, and more.
Ants are social insects, exhibiting intricate behavioral relationships within their colonies. This activity examines these relationships by allowing students to study behavior within a colony, as well as between colonies.
From Belgium, this site bills itself as "a repository and directory of arachnological information on the Internet." With more than 1000 links, AHP provides a host of resources for students K-university. Included subject areas: primary education; courses & educational projects; museum & zoo exhibitions; arachnologists' research home pages; arachnophobia; myths, stories, poems, & art; taxonomy, classification, & DNA databases; publications, databases, & societies; conferences; collections; and books & reports.
Bugscope is a new educational outreach project of the World Wide Laboratory. The primary goal of the Bugscope project is to demonstrate that relatively low cost, sustainable access to a scanning electron microscope can be made available to classrooms. Participating classrooms will have the opportunity to control an Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope to image insects at high magnification. Students and teachers control the microscope using web browsers from their classroom computers. The microscope is located at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois at Urban-Champaign.
The Wonderful World of Insects
This site provides a concise profile of the various Orders of insects, and includes a key to the Orders to aid in insect identification. The site also offers information on insect anatomy, as well as a collection of useful links.
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