All over the world we find insects. We do not always like them, some are very ugly, but insects are very important in nature.
We learned about insects before and we learned that they are important in the food web and that they pollinate flowers.
- What is the meaning of "pollination"
- Can you remember what a food web is? If you cannot remember, look at the picture to jog your memory. Now explain in your own words what a food web is.
- Which two insects are part of this food web?
- To which animal(s) do they serve as food?
- Can you draw your own food web? You can also paste pictures, but you have to label it.
- Have a look at the video on why insects are important to us.
Insects are Arthropods which means they have legs with joints. They also do not have a skeleton on the inside of their bodies, like we do, but they have a hard, protective skeleton on the outside which we call the exoskeleton.
They are invertebrates, which mean they do not have a back bone.
The body of an insect consist of 3 main parts - the head, the abdomen and the thorax.
Insects has 6 legs and some insects has 4 wings. At the top of their heads they have feelers. They lay eggs.
We find many different types of insects on Earth.
- Choose at least two of these insects (you can choose more) and find extra information or videos on it - this is for general knowledge because we love to learn.
- Read the following story and answer the questions.
On two farms next to each other lived two farmers. Farmer John and Farmer Peter. Farmer John grew mealies and wheat and Farmer Peter had cattle on his farm.
Farmer Brown discovered a bee hive on his farm and when he told Farmer Peter, he said "You are very lucky. Bees will help your crops grow."
Farmer Peter said he wish he had bees, but instead he just had a whole lot of flies that bothered his cattle. Because the flies bothers the cows, they make less milk, because they spend more time trying to avoid the flies.
He decided that he will have to dip the cows to keep the flies away and also to kill any ticks and fleas. The ticks and fleas can make the cows sick
Farmer John said he saw some grasshoppers on his mealies, and they were causing damage because they ate the mealies.
On Farmer John's farm there were also a lot of butterflies and he knew that like the bees, they also help to pollinate the flowers. They will take pollen from one flower to another and help the plant to grow.
These farmers are clever, because they know about different insects.
- How do bees and butterflies pollinate the flowers?
- Which insects in the story is helpful to the farmers and which are harmful?
- Draw or find a picture of each of the insects mentioned in this story.
- What precaution does the farmer take to protect his cows from ticks and fleas.
- Watch the video on beneficial insects (insects that is helpful to nature)
For fun
- You are going to choose any insect that you like or find interesting and use your crafting and art skills to make it.
- You can use any type of material you want like paper plates, toilet rolls, wire, cloth or net.
- You can use your imagination and make it as big or small as you want .
- Look at the pictures for some ideas. You can even write some interesting facts on the insect if you want.
Have some fun making this and always remember that even if we may not like insects, a lot of them are very useful to us
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