Field Trips
Take one step out your door and you're in a bug's world. It's not difficult to come up with field trips for bug watching because you can go virtually anywhere to watch them. Here are a couple of ways to get started, but use your imagination. After you've learned about bugs, remember to keep watching for them and talking about them all through the year.
I Spy Insects
Insects are everywhere, in homes, yards, garages, basements, around building foundations, in gardens, around lights at night, near streams and lakes, under logs and rocks, at parks, in forests, and pretty much any place else you can imagine. Put together a bug-collecting kit and go to your nearest park or woodland to start exploring. What you'll need:
Keep observation notebooks to help track the expedition. Students can draw pictures and try to identify what types of bugs they collected. They should also note where they found each bug.
Use tweezers to pick up larger insects.
Have plenty of containers for holding the insects if you plan on bringing any back to the classroom. Small film canisters or yogurt containers work well for this.
Build a pitfall trap to catch bugs if you have some time. Dig a small hole and insert a yogurt container. Put some bait like a scrap of food in the container. Place four medium-size rocks in a square around the hole. Place a piece of cardboard over the rocks to provide shade to the pitfall and brace it with a smaller rock. Return a few hours later to see if you've caught anything.
Colanders can be used for scooping bugs from water.
Butterfly nets are best for catching flying insects. You can buy one already made or make your own from some netting, a hanger, and a dowel or broomstick. First, cut a large isosceles triangle out of the netting and then sew the long sides together into a cone shape. Form a loop from the hanger. Fold the open edge of the cone down around the loop and sew it. Attach the hanger to a dowel or broom-stick. Flying insects are best caught using a downward motion as they tend to fly up.
Beat sheets can be used to collect slow-moving or small insects from plants. Place a light-colored pan or sheet of paper under a plant. Gently shake the insects off the plant onto the beat sheet; then grab them with tweezers or dump them off the sheet into a jar or another container.
As you look for bugs, remember that dead insects in good condition for examination can often be found on windowsills, car grilles, and walking paths.
Entomology Adventures
Visit a local university's department of entomology. You can call in advance to discuss the best way for them to host your field trip. They may have a laboratory they could walk you through, or they may just open a classroom and bring in specimens. If they don't generally host elementary field trips, ask them to invite college students to share projects and reports on a certain day for extra-credit. Find out in advance what types of bugs they have or will be talking about. Learn a little about them in class and then help your students prepare questions to ask.
