ACTIVITY 9

Habitat Hunt

Teaching Objectives:

1. Students will understand the concept of a habitat.
2. Students will determine the essential items for a specific insect's habitat.
3. Students will work as groups to solve a problem.
4. Students will use the Internet and other resources to answer questions and solve problems.
5. Students will share with their classmates the information gathered about insect habitats.

Materials Needed:

• Teacher-generated list of insects
• Classroom map of the world
• Outline Map of the World
• Large sheet of white paper
• Colored markers or crayons

Procedure:

Ask the students what they think the word "habitat" means. Write their responses on the board. Look up the word habitat in the dictionary and see how close the students' ideas were to the actual meaning of the word.

"habitat: place where a living thing naturally lives or grows" (1)

Use the katydid as an example insect. Discover what requirements the katydid has in order to live. Do katydids live in the local environment of the students? Have the students search the two Internet sites listed below as well as any others the students may find through running a search. What things are similar in the students' environment to that of other environments that make suitable katydid habitats?

Amazon Katydids--Principal Investigator Dr. David Nickle of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History has been studying katydids in the Amazon forest since 1987 with the help of EarthCorps volunteers.

Live from the Rainforest--Passport to Knowledge site that has information on the Amazon Rainforest, including cricket sounds, videotaped programs that cover leaf cutter ants, and much more.

An Interactive Key to Katydids of La Selva, Costa Rica (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae)--This site has information about katydids including a diagram of a katydid body.

Ask the class to consider these questions: What would happen to the katydid if there were no more rainforest? What would happen to the rainforest if there were no more katydids? (The class may not come up with a definitive answer but their level of consciousness regarding the value of insects should increase.)

Put the names of several insects in a "hat" and let the students draw for the name of one. Teachers have the option here of controlling the activity by the insects they choose to include. These choices could be limited to insects indigenous to the area, or they could be insects from around the world. Ask the students to find out the type habitat each insect requires and where these insects could be found because of those requirements.

When the students have located the information, place the names of the insects that live in particular areas on a large map.

Supplemental Activities:

Have the students make a map of the school grounds. Divide the map by various habitats and assign students to each of the habitat areas. Go on an "Insect Safari" and have the students record the insects sighted in the various habitats on a Field Collection Record. Some questions the students might be asked to answer about each insect discovered in their habitat are:

What is the insect eating?

Where is the insect going to and/or coming from?

Where in the habitat was the insect?

What was the insect doing?

When the students return to the classroom, make a list of the insects found in each habitat. Determine if some insects were only found in one type habitat. Determine which type insects were found in more than one habitat.

Videotape the habitats that exist on the school grounds and the insects that live in them if possible. Have the students develop a script such as a travelogue to structure their videotape around. Assign different parts for each class member.

(1) Thorndike, E. L., and Barnhart, Clarence L. Thorndike-Barnhart Junior Dictionary. Chicago: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997.