Welcome back to class!! I know it's hard to believe it, but we only have 1 class left after today. Next week will be a spring break and then the following week (4/17) will be our last class. for our last class, I'm praying that we will be able to spend the time completely outdoors, just experiencing some of what we've been learning about. The weather has not be very cooperative for this so far, so we'll see.
This week, our family received a special package in the mail. We had been waiting for it to come for several weeks. We received live ants in the mail! We bought an ant farm for the kids for Christmas, and we just received our pet ants in the mail. They had to wait until the spring to ship them when it was warm enough. So for this reason, coupled with the fact that I have been hearing so many people complaining of ants in their kitchens lately, I felt a lesson on ants was a great idea! After, all when I think of spring, one of the things I think about are the return of ants!
Along with our ant farm, I also brought in our crayfish and the bean plant we planted from last week's lesson.
Materials Needed for Activities/Experiments:
Ant Farm - active with ants (can be ordered by clicking this link Ant Farms or bought at many local stores)
Whiteboard Preparation:
List the classification of ants, and the ant life cycle.
Class Starter:
Read the The Grasshopper and the Ants - Aesop's Fables
Questions to be answered in class today: What is an ant? What is the anatomy of an ant? How are ants classified? What is the life cycle of an ant? What do worker ants do?
( Throughout this whole lesson we will be observing the ants in the ant farm.)
1) What is an ant? What is the anatomy of an ant?
Ants are insects. Insects and their relatives are part of a huge group of animals called anthropods. Insects have three segments to their bodies: the head, the thorax, and the abdomen. They also have no internal skeleton, their insides are all mushy! They instead are covered on the outside with a hard outer layer called the exoskeleton.
The head is made up of the feelers or antennae which the ant uses to touch and smell with, the pinchers which the ant uses to carry , dig, defend and eat with, compound eyes which the ant uses to see many of the same thing with, and the brain which it uses to think with. It would take 40,000 ant brains to equal one human brain, however an ant brain has amazing processing power likened to a computer, and ants have the largest brain of all insects.
The thorax has 6 legs with a sharp claw on each end. These help the ants to climb and run fast. If a human were an ant, we could run as fast as a race horse!
The abdomen is made up of the poison sac and a stinger which it uses to secrete on it's enemies and two stomachs.
2) How are ants classified?
As you may already know, every animal and plant in the world is classified into a system to help scientists identify them. It's a means by which we divide and organize all the animals and plants into groups. Classification makes things easier to find, identify, and study. As you'll see there are 6 classes that animals are divided into. We owe this system to Carolus Linnaeus. Remember him from when we learned about Phenology? He was one of the founding fathers of plant phenology.
The following is the classification of ants:
Kingdom - Animalia
Phylum - Anthropoda
Class - Insecta
Order - Hymenoptera
Suborder - Apocrit
Family - Formicidae
3) What is the life cycle of an ant?
The life cycle of an ant is as follows:
Egg - Queen lays tiny oval shaped eggs
Larva - worm like larva grow and grow causing their skin to shed; they don't have eyes or legs yet.
Pupa - one the larva reaches a certain size, it spins a cocoon and pupates; during the time in the cocoon, the larva changes into an adult ant.
The life expectancy of a worker ant is 45-60 days, however the queen can live up to 10-20 years!
4) What do worker ants do?
Speaking of worker ants, let's talk a little about what they do. First you should know that in an ant colony there are three different types of ants: the queen, the males, and the worker ants. There will be one queen ant per colony, she is much larger than the rest. The queen and male ants are strictly for making more ants. The worker ants, which are all females have many different jobs to do in the colony. The ants that are in our farm are all workers ants. They always begin their work by cleaning themselves. Then they go off to work! Here are some of the different jobs done by the workers ants.
Queen Tender: help the queen deliver her eggs by grabbing eggs with their mandibles.
Nurse Ant: lick larvae so they do not dry out, and feed them as they grow.
Tunnel Diggers: dig tunnels for traffic and new chambers to store eggs and larvae and food. (which is what you see them doing here in this farm)
Guards: stand near the entrance of the nest, blocking strange ants from entering.
Foragers: the oldest workers ants search for food. Most foragers search within 50 feet of hte nest, but if food is scarce, they may travel thousands of feet.
These workers ants only live 45-60 days, and they spend it working HARD!! You will notice in this farm how hard they are working.
5) Bible Lesson
Proverbs 6:6
6 Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!
Proverbs 30:24-25
24 "Four things on earth are small, yet they are extremely wise:
25 Ants are creatures of little strength, yet they store up their food in the summer;
6) Notebook Entry
Ant Diagram
Ant Life Cycle
Files:
7) Nature Challenge
Observation of Ants -
- Take a nature walk. Continue looking for the signs of spring. On your walk look to see if you can spot any ants yet. Look under logs and rocks. If you cannot find them yet, be sure to keep your eyes out for them on future walks as the temperatures continue to rise. When you do find them, take a moment to just observe. What sort of things do you see them doing. What kind of ant do you think they are? Worker? Do you see any eggs? Be sure to not disturb them too much. You may see the worker ants frantically moving the eggs if you've found them.
- If you find a colony of ants, bring them a little something to eat such as cookie or bread crumbs. Put them near them and watch what they do with it.
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Posted by 
Apr. 9, 2009 - Busy as a bee...or...an ant! Yeah! That's it!
Hope your week has been productive and you've been able to explore His creation!
Blessings, Julie
Edited by OldSchoolMarm on Apr. 9, 2009 at 9:35 AM