Bug catchers grab your nets!

Our very special guest, Entomologist Shasta Henry, will lead this engaging session. Get up close and personal with some fabulous insects to appreciate and explore the scientific concept of life cycles. Students will learn that different animals have different lifecycles and that environmental factors can affect these life cycles.

More than one million different species of insect have been described to date. They are the most abundant group of animals in the world and live in almost every habitat. Insects have lived on earth for more than 350 million years. Entomology is crucial to our understanding of human disease, agriculture, evolution, ecology and biodiversity.

You will receive a teacher guide and printed materials for this session.

No prior knowledge is required

In this program students will:

• Explore the lifecycles of a number of insects and their relationships to their respective environments.
• Notice and wonder about the observable features of insects.

In this video conference students will:

• Observe a number of Shasta’s favourite insects and bugs and learn what distinguishes them.
• Explore the stages of the lifecycles of two very different insectss.
• Draw, along with Shasta, an insect lifecycle.
• Make a 3D diorama of the butterfly lifecycle.

Science: Science Understanding

• Living things have characteristics that distinguish them from non-living things and things that were once living, including fossils (VC2S4U01)
• Plants and animals have different life cycles; offspring are similar, but not identical, to their parents (VC2S4U02)

Science: Science Inquiry

• Observations can be used as a basis for posing questions to identify patterns and relationships, and to predict the outcomes of investigations (VC2S4I01)
• Data and information can be organised and represented to identify patterns and simple relationships by constructing tables, graphs and visual or physical models (VC2S4I04)