This lesson is part of a science unit entitled "Spiders: Fact and Fiction." During this lesson, learning will focus on specific body anatomy, functions and distinguishing characteristics of spiders.
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.
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.
The design of the Biodiversity Counts resource collection allows you to tailor a curriculum by choosing the combination of resources that meet your requirements, needs, and time constraints. Mix and match to form your own curriculum or try one of the suggested combinations below-they offer a choice between investigating plants, arthropods, or both, in full or abridged versions.
This online activity is part of the museum's Online Field Journal Web site, where young children can explore the wonders of nature with the help of an adult. The challenge here is to compare examples within categories of field evidence. On the opening page, the 11 comparison activities are listed: Seashells, Birds, Insects, Butterflies, Rocks, Leaves, Animal Tracks, Reptiles, Flowers, Fish, and Spiders. On the first page of each comparison activity, there are side-by-side photos of three different objects; students are asked to describe the differences between them. Clicking a photo takes students to a magnified view of the object; this subpage also has additional questions that hone students' observation skills. When students click on the magnified photo, they get a fun fact.
This online activity is part of the museum's Online Field Journal Web site, where young children can explore the wonders of nature with the help of an adult. Here, they get guidance about how to observe nature with printable field journal pages. On the opening page, the 11 field journals are listed: Seashells, Birds, Insects, Butterflies, Rocks, Leaves, Animal Tracks, Reptiles, Flowers, Fish, and Spiders. The first page of each field journal activity includes instructions designed to focus the exploration, along with questions to think about. The field journal, which is a printable page, has places to record a name, the date, weather conditions, and written and illustrated observations.
In this video segment from Garden Insects, learn about six varieties of spiders that live in one garden.
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.
This illustrated guide (dorsal view) to a male spider is designed to help students recognize and learn its common and unique body parts. The single Web page, which can be easily printed for use at field sites or in the lab, also includes a short description for the following labeled parts: chelicera pedipalp anterior eye row posterior eye row cephalothorax (or prosoma) pedicel abdomen (or opisthosoma) spinnerets coxa trochanter femur patella tibia metatarsus tarsus.
This illustrated guide (ventral view) to a female spider is designed to help students recognize and learn its common and unique body parts. The single Web page, which can be easily printed for use at field sites or in the lab, also includes a short description for the following labeled parts: chelicera fang endite labium sternum coxa lung slit epigynum spinnerets.
This interactive look at a ground spider's anatomy has 30 close-up images taken using the high-resolution technology of a scanning electron microscope (SEM). By mousing over the labeled images, students can see both the dorsal and ventral views.
This online article is from the Museum's Seminars on Science, a series of distance-learning courses designed to help educators meet the new national science standards. Spotlight on Spiders, part of The Study of Spiders seminar, profiles six species of spiders.
Spiders are endlessly fascinating and a great school subject because they offer plenty of teachable topics that span the curriculum. We've tried to provide some of those topics here in these lessons, as for all their amazing physical features and unusual habits, spiders, with just a few notable exceptions, pose little threat to humans and are creatures deserving of understanding and respect. It's our hope that, as you work through the activities, your students will gain a new appreciation for spiders.
