BioBlitz: Nature Detectives Pre-visit activity at school

Resources needed:

6x sets of Invertebrate pictures (cut out) for sorting activity (for a class of 30) 6x Classification flowchart for key activity ID guides for extension activity

Introducing invertebrates

Introduce invertebrates as animals that do not have a backbone

Does anyone know the name of the bone that goes all the way down our backs? (Backbone or spine)

Do you know any animals that do not have one of these? (They may already know soft-bodied invertebrates such as worms, snails, slugs).

There are lots of animals that don’t have a backbone such as butterflies, bees, spiders, crabs, jellyfish and octopuses. These are called invertebrates.

Explain that today they are going to be sorting invertebrates into groups using their similarities and differences

There are so many different animals on Earth, that to be able to understand them we need to be able to sort them into different groups. Today we are going to sort out some common invertebrates that you might find in the UK, by looking at their similarities and differences. This is called classification.

Sorting activity

Hand out all the pictures of the invertebrates and ask students to look at their features and think about how they are similar or different

What features can you see on the animals’ bodies?

What do some have that others don’t? (E.g. wings, different colours, different shapes, different number of legs).

Divide the class into groups five and hand out a set of pictures to each group

Ask the students to group the pictures into piles on the tables using their own criteria (e.g. colour, shape, size etc.) . NB: There is no right or wrong answer to this - they can sort them however they like as long as they are consistent—e.g. if sorting by colour they must put all the brown ones together and all the green ones together etc.

Using a key

Introduce the classification key and model to the students how to use it

Now you have sorted the animals into groups in your own way, let’s sort them out the way that real scientists do, using something called a key.

P.T.O.

A key is a list of questions with yes or no answers. You must start at the beginning and fol-low the arrows depending on whether you answer yes or no. Eventually you will get to the end and it will tell you what group your animal belongs to.

Get the students to work as a group to practice using the key and work out which invertebrate group each animal belongs to

Go through the answers as a class (see answer sheet)

What are the key features of each group? (Insects have 6 legs. Arachnids have eight legs. Crustaceans have a hard exoskeleton. Myriapods have many legs. Molluscs usually have a shell.)

Plenary

Explain to the students that when they come to the Zoo they will be searching for invertebrates in the Zoo grounds and will be using keys to group the animals.

Explain that they will also be identifying exactly what type of invertebrates they find, using something called an ID guide. Show the ID guide to the students if time.

Optional Extension:

Take students into the school grounds to look for invertebrates and use the key to classify the different invertebrates they find. They can also use the ID guide to identify the invertebrates species. They can then keep a note of what they see so they can compare their results to what they see in the wildflower patch at the zoo.

1 2 1

3 4

5

6

7 8

9 10

11 12

1) Ant — Insect

2) Wasp — Insect

3) Fly — Insect

4) True bug —Insect

5) Butterfly — Insect

6) Grasshopper —

Insect

8) Snail — Mollusc

7) Spider —

Arachnid

10) Woodlouse—

Crustacean

9) Centipede —

Myriapod

12) Worm

11) Slug—Mollusc

Answers

Snails

Woodlice

Insect larvae

Legs:

8

BioBlitz

Nature Detectives

Body divided into two

parts– head & abdomen

Long thin legs

One body part —

round or oval

Harvestmen

Body divided into many seg-

ments, 7 pairs of legs, oval

body, can roll into a ball

Centipede

Long thin body divided into

segments, at least 15 pairs of

legs

Millipede Long thin body

with 2 pairs of leg

on each segment

Slugs

Earthworm

Soft, slimy body and hard

coiled shell

Soft, slimy body but does not

have a hard coiled shell

Long thin body divid-

ed into segments

Most insects reproduce by laying eggs. The young

that hatch from these eggs are either larvae (looks

different from adults) or nymphs (smaller versions

of the adult)

Butterfly & Moth

True fly larva (maggot)

Beetle larva

Mollusc

Worms

Myriapods

Crustacean

Arachnid

Long antennae

See-through wings

Most have narrow

waist

Bees are often hairy,

whereas wasps and

ants are not hairy.

Ants usually

do not have

wings

Bees, wasps and ants Butterflies and moths

Long antennae

Two wings on

each side, usually col-

Butterfly— usually flies during the day, rest

with their wings closed

Moth—usually fly at night, feathery antennae,

rest with wings open

Beetles

Cricket, grasshoppers, earwigs

True flies

True bugs

Legs:

6

Pincer– shaped

Wing cases meet in a

straight line to make

a T shape

Hard forewing cases to

protect wings

Wings usually meet in an

X– or Y– shape

Not true for aphids

Large eyes

Short antennae

One pair of see-

through wings

Crickets have long

antennae

Grasshoppers have

short antennae

Earwigs have a pair of

pincer-shaped clasps

Legs:

6

Legs:

6

Legs:

6

Legs:

6

Legs:

6

Insects