Overview:

This activity is going to be used to learn about the classification process that is used by Entomologists. This should take about an hour for a second grade class to finish this lesson.

Purpose:

The students will be able to sort insects into groups based on similar characteristics.

Mathematics: Displaying and Interpreting Data-collect, organize, record, and display data in picture and bar graphs; interpret information from graphs.

Science: 5a Properties and Patterns-classify and sequence organisms, objects, events.

Materials:

Plenty of insects that belong to a wide variety of Orders

Tweezers and Pokers.

Getting Ready:

You should know about the division of insects by Order or have them pre-identified and grouped to use as a reference for the students to check themselves with.

Kingdom-Animal

Phylum-Arthropoda

Class-Hexapoda or Insecta (insects)

Class-Arachnida (spiders, mites, ticks, scorpions)

Motivate:

At the beginning of the lesson, bring in a lot of different kinds of insects so that each group of three students has a lot of insects that they can work with. Tell the students that they are Entomologists today and they have just discovered many new insects that need to be organized into groups to make it easier to identify them.

Activity:

After the students are given their insects and other materials, have them as small groups of about three, pick out features of the insects so that they can use these features to organize them into insect groups. Have them name the groups of insects and explain why they named them what they did. The students can be given jobs to help them all have a part in learning. The students can be a recorder, a presenter, and a materials handler.

Safety Tips:

Make sure the students know the dangers of the pokers and use all tools correctly.

Concept Discovery:

Explain how Entomologists have classified insects and arachnids. Go over the major Kingdoms, then walk the students down through Phylum Anthropoda, Class Hexapoda and Class Arachnida. Have the students then start sharing how they organized the insects into their Order groups and the names for those groups. Go over some of the actual Orders for the given insects so the children can see how and why they are actually classified the way they are. Have the students make a graph showing how many insects are in each of their Order groups.

Going Further:

Have the students find other insects that would fit into the actual Orders that they have learned. Have them group other insects and arachnids into their correct Orders.

Closure:

Have the students share their graphs and classification systems with the class and tell why they put the insects into the groups that they did. Have the students show what they have learned by placing the insects into the actual Orders and explain why they could be included in this group.

Assessment:

Assess the students by looking at their graphs as well as observing them and asking them questions while they are working on organizing their insects into the Order groups.

Connections:

Connections to Mathematics by classifying, English could have writing about why each insect was placed in each group. This activity could easily be modified for almost all age groups because children of all ages can divide things up into groups.

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