ACTIVITY 15

Insecta Mathematica

Teaching Objectives:

1. Students will work teacher-created math problems.
2. Students will find numbers relating to different insect species and use these numbers to create mathematics questions.

Materials Needed:

• Field guides
• Insect books
• Teacher-created math problems
• Writing supplies
• Internet access

Procedure:

Find some interesting insect facts that contain numbers either in books or on the Internet and use these to create age-appropriate mathematics problems for the students to solve. Sample problems:

1. There are 1,000,000 species of insects. The remainder of the animal species fit into 25,000 species. What percentage of the total animal species are insects?
2. Select three insects whose total body lengths would add up to between 1" and 1 1/2".
3. Find the wing-span of the average monarch butterfly and convert this measurement to metric measurements. List both the standard and the metric measurements in the answer.
4. The average ant weighs 1/10,000 ounce. How many ants would it take to equal a 150-pound human in weight?

Have the students create math problems for their classmates to solve using information in their text books, in reference books, or on the Internet. For example, Best Estimate of the Number of Described Insect Species from the National Museum of Natural History in Leiden, Netherlands, gives the estimated number species for the different insect orders around the world.