This exercise is a field study of the ecology of aquatic insects in a small stream. By using the inquiry technique, students discover how different animals have unique adaptations for being successful in particular habitats, especially at small spatial scales. Students also learn how these specializations establish essential ecological roles for the aquatic insects in stream ecosystems. Thus, students gain an appreciation of how biodiversity is not just a list of species in a particular environment; it also includes what they do in that environment.

This exercise is designed to familiarize the student with ethology, the study of animal behavior, by observing the behavior of several different arthropods.

This Web page serves as a linked table of contents for the museum's supplemental resources on arthropod morphology. From it, you can access the following illustrated guides with a single click: Types of Antennae, Front View of an Insect (Grasshopper) Head, Parts of an Insect (Grasshopper), Parts of a Spider: Dorsal View of a Male Spider, Parts of a Spider: Ventral View of a Female Spider, and Metamorphosis.

In this video segment from WILD TV, learn about bees and the different techniques for handling them.

This BioBulletin Web site takes an in-depth look at the Asian longhorn beetle. The site includes text, videos, photographs, and interviews with key scientists.

Students learn to identify several beneficial insects and spiders, including predators and pollinators, then record numbers and types of beneficial insects and spiders that they discover in the outdoors, and discuss ways that the insects and spiders that they observed are adapted to be pollinators or predators.

This lab exercise tests the ecological principle of energy flow in a laboratory setting using roaches as an experimental secondary producer. Energy use is measured by respiration, energy storage by growth, and energy input as ingestion minus feces. The laws of thermodynamics state that energy intake should equal energy output; accuracy of measurements can therefore be determined. Growth rates, respiratory rates, and ingestion rates can be compared for different size classes. The exercise lasts four weeks allowing students to take part in a structured research project in which they must handle data and compare results to their own hypotheses and values found in the literature.

Water quality monitoring activities can support student inquiry into ecological concepts and pollution issues, as well as offer insight into integrating field and lab work. This exercise provides students with practice in identification (to order or family level) of stream macroinvertebrates that they've previously collected. Provided information indicates water pollution tolerance of the various taxa. Students use the data to calculate several different biotic indices for the macroinvertebrates; these are compared to express overall stream water quality. Ideas for possible extensions of this activity are presented.

This Web site, created to complement the museum's Butterfly Conservatory exhibit, looks at the butterflies that color our world.

Use to develop experimental design of sex pheromone concentrations, and observing courtship behavior of cockroaches. This may be used in entomology or physiology laboratory classes.

Students will use books, encyclopedias, magazines, and the Internet to discover certain facts about an insect of their choice.

A laboratory exercise to study insect courtship behavior using Melittobia digitata, WOWBugs.

Lesson 1 introduces students to the blow fly's life cycle and the accumulated degree hour (ADH) used by forensic entomologists for estimating the time of death. Lesson 2 introduces Dr. Krinsky's entomological work in solving a murder case in 1986. Students access several primary-source documents related to Dr. Krinsky's entomological work. Both lessons help students expand their understanding of a forensic entomologist's work and appreciate how scientists account for environmental/variable factors in forming a conclusion in a scientific study.

Students will make observations of the behavior and life stages in flour beetles.

Students go on a "spider safari" to find spiders around the house, yard, garage, or barn and observe their ways of life, then they return to the classroom to debate the pros and cons of the web-making way of life versus the roaming hunter lifestyle.

The exercise will introduce the students to using chemical surgery as well as demonstrate the function of insect juvenile hormone and naturally occurring compounds in the interaction between insects and host plants.

A series of exercises were developed in the cell biology laboratory using a host-parasite system: the tobacco hornworm and an inoffensive parasitoid wasp. Exercises are fully investigative and no initial schedule is given to the students who, after becoming acquainted with the system, raise questions and decide as a group what they wish to study next (Cell morphology? Cytoskeleton? Protein synthesis?). This workshop involved introduction to the system of study, phase contrast microscopy, and digital image capturing as examples of how the system can be used. Some of the numerous biological concepts that may be taught using this system are outlined herein. The development of this system was funded by a CCLI-NSF grant (DUE 99-51371).

This illustrated guide is designed to help students understand and learn the difference between simple and complete metamorphosis. The Web page, which can be easily printed for use at field sites, illustrates: complete metamorphosis for lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) simple metamorphosis for thysanura (silverfish) simple metamorphosis for heteroptera (true bugs). In addition, the guide discusses the following additional terms: nymph larva pupa egg.

Honeybees provide a convenient source of insect flight muscle, a tissue especially rich in mitochondria. These organelles are easily isolated using simple laboratory equipment and their metabolic activity readily measured colorimetrically with the dye 2,6-dichloroindophenol, which changes from blue to colorless when reduced by the electrons produced during respiration. This system is well-suited for studying cell fractionation, experimental isolation of the major subcellular components responsible for glycolysis and the Krebs cycle, and the role of oxygen in respiration. It can also be used for simple enzymology experiments using the Krebs cycle enzyme succinic dehydrogenase.