ACTIVITY 26

Wanted Dead or Alive!

Teaching Objectives:

1. Students will recognize the benefits that many insects provide in the environment.
2. Students will recognize the potential harm that insects can cause such as diseases and damage to plants.
3. Students will do research about an insect and create a poster, flyer, multimedia presentation, or web page to be shared with their classmates discussing the insect's benefits or potential for harm to the environment.
4. Students will compare and contrast the beneficial and harmful effects that various insects have on the environment.

Materials Needed:

• Books, pamphlets, and other authoritative materials about insects including information from experts such as local entomologists or the state Extension Service
• Information about insects found on the Internet
• Poster board or paper; markers, crayons, or colored pencils, or multimedia presentation/word processing/desktop publishing software such as Hyperstudio, Works/Word/ClarisWorks, PowerPoint, and others.

Procedure:

Read through the Basic Facts: Benefits of Insects and Basic Facts: Harm Done by Insects in this module. Have the students use additional printed, online, or other authoritative sources to supplement this information on beneficial and harmful insects.

Discuss the fact that while some insects may be considered harmful by man, these insects may serve an important function such as providing food for other animals. Find and discuss additional ways in which "harmful" insects are actually "helpful." Given the name of a harmful insect, ask the students to discuss what beneficial insects might be used to overcome the effects of the harmful insects.

Assign each student an insect or ask them to select one to research and determine if the insect is beneficial or harmful to the human environment. Students should document their sources for the facts they present. In order to compare and contrast these beneficial and harmful insects, care should be taken to have a balance of beneficial and harmful insects among those selected.

Have the students create a "Wanted Dead or Alive!" poster, flyer, multimedia presentation, or web page about their insect and share these presentations with the class. In their presentations, students should include such information as the insect's natural habitat, what the insect needs to stay alive, and why the insect is "wanted." Allow the students to be creative in their presentations, using terminology from the "Old West" wanted posters. For beneficial insects, the "bounty" could be the price these insects cost in scientific supply/garden supply catalogs. Use the sample flyer as an example of the type things the students might want to include in their presentations. "Get this bug off of me!" discusses insects that are not harmful and some that are dangerous.

Students can use traditional materials such as poster board and markers, or computer software such as Hyperstudio, Works/Word/ClarisWorks, PowerPoint, or any other presentation/word processing/desktop publishing software available. Allow the students to draw, make xerograpic copies, or download the insect's image for their presentations.

Use the presentations the students create as a basis for writing a compare-and-contrast paragraphs or essays.

Supplemental Activities:

Have the students do first-person, oral presentations acting as a particular insect and tell why they are beneficial or, in the case of harmful insects, why they have been maligned by man's portrayal of them.

Divide the students into teams and conduct a classroom debate about whether a particular insect should be eradicated from the environment or not. Endangered Insectsis a gopher site that has a list of insects on the endangered list for students who might be interesting in knowing which ones they are.

Have the students hypothesize and write a paragraph or more about ways to transform a specific "harmful" insect into one that is "beneficial" to man.

Divide the students into teams of "bounty hunters." Devise hypothetical situations in which insects are destroying something in the environment such as a particular food crop or clothing. Provide clues and have the students "track down" the insects through research on the Internet and/or through printed materials or other sources. Require the students to document their sources. Award points to the teams in the order in which they arrive at the correct answers, either one at a time or when all insects have been located. For example, if there are five teams, the first team to find an answer could receive five points, the second four points, and so forth. The team with the highest number of points at the end of the research period should be given an appropriate reward.

As an alternative to or extension of the suggestions presented here, allow the students to devise their own approaches to these activities. Hyperstudio presentations could be developed about insect orders not covered in this module. PowerPoint slides could be created for individual insects or specific orders. "Insect Facts" cards could be created and used in a game format. Booklets which include insect species could be created to share with younger children. The possiblities are limited only by the students' uses of their imaginations and the materials available for their use.