| Lesson 2: Communitites: What do we need? |
Objective: Students will be able to identify the different kinds of bees in a hive community and relate them to the different kinds of people in their own neighborhoods. They will also be able to recognize ways in which they can work like a honeybee to benefit their own communities.
| Key Points:
- A community is a group of biotic organisms living together
- Honeybees are communal insects and live in hives with a queen, many workers, and drones which each have a specific role in maintaining the community
- Honeybee colonies can be used as a model for developing sustainable communities
- Each part of the ecosystem is important to its overall survival
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Academic State Standards Covered:
- 4.2.4 Renewable and Nonrenewable Resources
Identify the needs of people
- 4.6.4. Ecosystems and their Interactions
A. Understand that living things are dependent on nonliving things in the environment for survival.
B. Understand the concept of cycles.
C. Identify how ecosystems change over time.
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Materials:
· Clothespins (one for each student)
· Stiff Paper
· Permanent markers
· Straight pipecleaners, cut into thirds
· Wavy pipe cleaners, cut in half (two waves for each half)
· Googly eyes
· Toothpicks
· Glue
· Paper
· Crayons
· Scissors
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Opening (10 min.): Students will sit in a circle with instructor and read a story about honeybees:
· Richard Fowler’s Honeybee’s Busy Day
· Lori Mortensen’s In the Trees, Honeybees!
· Anne Rockwell’s Honey in a Hive
· Gail Gibbons The Honey Maker
Introduction to New Material (15 min): Instructor will introduce the concept of a habitat as being the place where animals make their homes, a community being a grouping of the same species of organism, and an ecosystem as being the interaction between these biotic and abiotic components by asking questions such as:
· Where does this story take place?
· What kinds of animals and plants live there?
· How do these animals take care of their homes and eachother?
· Do you know what kinds of different honeybees there are?
From this question there should be a clear description of the different kinds of bees in a hive. For each specific bee duty, prompt class to think about how this same task (or similar task) is achieved in our neighborhood, and by what kind of job:
· Worker Bees:
o Guard Bees work to defend the hive against predators (dragonflies, spiders, birds, skunks) by waiting by the hive entrance to attack anything that comes to eat bees or honey. This is an important job, therefore if they need help they will send out a message with a pheromone or smell to other bees to come and help them.
§ Talk about how bees communicate by pheromones and smell using their antennae
o Queen Attendants work to feed and groom the queen
o Nurse Bees feed the honeybee larvae
o Honeycomb Builders construct the comb structure of the hive and repair damaged hive materials
o Foraging Bees fly from the hive to collect pollen and nectar to feed the rest of the hive
o Garbage Bees remove waste from the hive to keep it clean and prevent disease
· Drone Bees mate with the queen
· Queen Bees lay up to 2,000 eggs each day
Activity (15 min.): Students will create clothespin honeybees.
1. Each student will be given a piece of paper and crayons. The instructor will talk about the four wings that honeybees have and show a picture. Students will draw a set of wings, color them in, and cut them out. Students can be prompted to think about what role their bee will take, and can draw their wings as a pretend uniform for that bee (guard bee as a police officer).
2. One clothespin will be passed out to each student. The instructor will talk about the three body parts that honeybees have, specifically the striped abdomens. Students will be asked to draw stripes on the open end of the clothespin.
3. Pipecleaners will be used to represent legs, each student will be given two straight pipecleaners to be twisted around the pipecleaner body to form the front four legs, and one wavy pipecleaner to be twisted around the clothespin to form the last set of legs. The pipecleaner waves represent pollen baskets.
4. Another straight pipecleaner should be twisted around the head of the honeybee clothespin with the ends pointed opposite the legs to represent the antennae.
5. Two googly eyes will be glued to each clothespin, one on each side of the front to represent the two compund eyes. Students will be prompted to draw three dots on the top of the head with a marker to represent the three simple, light sensative eyes.
6. Paper wings will be glued to the top portion of the clothespin.
7. Students can choose (depending on if their bee is a worker bee or not) to add a stinger by gluing a toothpick to their honeybee’s abdomen.
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Assessment (10 min.): Students will be given
paper and crayons and asked to write (if they are unable to write this can be
done orally) what kind of bee they made and what its responsibility is in its
hive.
| Closing (10 min.): Instructor should talk
about how each honeybee has a role in their community, and ask children to
recall some of these roles by asking a few students to share what their bee’s
responsibility is. Students should be asked how they can take an active role in
their community.
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