Insect Museum
The Buzz in Meadow Pond's Second Grade
Why do fireflies flicker? Gavin knows all about the little flashing beetles. Summit loves to share facts about ladybugs—including how the insect got its name. Can mosquitos bite more than once, and do they really prefer certain people? Head to Marco for answers.
Meadow Pond’s second graders are insect experts! The young entomologists recently hosted an Insect Museum—a colorful display of more than 50 exhibits held in the school’s gym—to share insect information with families and other students. The project integrated ELA and science, as well as art, sustainability and technology.
Principal Ashlyn Field listens to student's presentation
Project Brings Science, ELA, Art & Tech Learning Together
Students began by learned about insects and their role in our world through classroom lessons, read-aloud books and videos. Each student chose a specific insect to investigate and continued their research in the school library. “They looked at five areas,” said second grade teacher Jill Walsh, “the insect’s body parts, habitat, lifecycle, food and survival strategies.”
insect expert
The learning and sharing were multidimensional
The gym takeover was practically crawling with creatures. Not only did each student create a physical, 3D model of the insect they had researched, Staff Developer Mike Sammartano showed them how to use Apple Reality Composer, an augmented reality app, so visitors could place a scorpion on the basketball hoop, for instance, or see a dragonfly on the bleachers.
The Insect Museum was also strangely quiet.
As each visitor stopped by an exhibit, they put on headphones and listened, nodding or raising their eyebrows to what they heard. Each student had created a two-minute recording in which they shared what the insect ate, where it lived, and its role in the world. The presenters were organized, well-spoken and enthusiastic.
Best of all were the cool facts each student included.
“The bull ant’s venom is used as a pain reliever in medical treatments,” said Lucas.
“The silkworm’s cocoon is made of one single thread that’s 600 – 900 meters long!” said Maria, who named her silkworm model Snowdrop, because of the color of its cocoon.
“What we loved most about this project was seeing how engaged our students were throughout the entire process – from researching, to writing, then creating their augmented reality insects, and finally presenting their hard work to their families,” said second grade teachers Kate Hernandez, Deanna Lyon, Melissa DiMarco and Jill Walsh. “It was amazing to see how they went through their own ‘metamorphosis’ from students to expert entomologists!”
