Bugscope: Discovering the Bee Natalie Fuller EDUC 140 Due: October 11, 2006

Pictures: Before and After These pictures show my first hand drawn picture of a bee and my drawing after viewing it digitally and seeing the physical bee under the microscope. My perception changed because prior to seeing pictures of an actual bee my depiction is that of a cartoon bee. After hands on learning I saw that the bee has many different parts, which are more intricate than I had thought prior to the bugscope activity.

Bee Photos In photos 1 and 2 it shows pictures of bees seen under the microscope in the classroom. The other photos show digital pictures found on the internet to learn more about the structure of a bee. Photo 1 Photo 2 Internet Photos

Introduction to Bee Life Bumblebees can live in colonies between thirty and four hundred bees and most bees have a lifespan of only a few weeks. Only the new queen bees live through the winter to the following year by hibernating in a burrow.

Bee Life In the spring the new life cycle begins when the queen bee emerges from her hibernation. The queen bee has to find her own food. The only time she searches for nectar or pollen. The queen then in her burrow builds a few small cells from wax made by her body and fills these with nectar for food. Then she places a tiny lump of pollen in the bottom of other cells and lays white eggs on top.

Bee Life Continued The eggs hatch and larvae emerge. The larvae eventually pupate forming a hard skin to become a pupa. Their bodies turn black after two weeks and develop into adult worker bees. All workers are female and look like the queen but are smaller. This change from larvae to adult is known as metamorphosis. The queen bee in late summer and early autumn produces new larvae which develop into male bees called drones and new queen bees.

Internet Summary Resources /printouts.shtml

Bugscope After creating a summary and investigating through the bugscope session in class I have learned that the life of a bee is much more complicated than I had thought prior to the bugscope exercise. Bugscope was a great way to see interactively how a bug looks. The technology used also included: bugscope, microscopes and analyzing photos from internet resources. From using a variety of resources it is easy to see how much students can learn from an interactive activity such as bugscope. It allows for discovery learning, which is a great hands on way to allow students potential for great education.

Bugscope Picture This photo was found on the bugscope website from the : Jacksonville State University Jacksonville, Alabama USA bugscope session. It shows a moldy bee. I found this really interesting to take a look at because it allowed me to see how intricate a bee’s structure can truly bee. However it was hard to find a good picture of a bee on the bugscope website.

NSES Standard & Application Content Standard E: “The science and technology standards connect students to the designed world, offer them experience in making models of useful things, and introduce them to laws of nature through their understanding of how technological objects and systems work.” - This standard relates directly to the bugscope because the science and technology used in the bugscope activity, included many different parts to the research of a particular bug. For instance looking at the bug on the bugscope website, analyzing the bug under a microscope and researching the digital pictures of the bug on websites. The bugscope activity allows students to increase their understanding of technology as well as how bugs work.

Literature Sources Bees by Deborah Hodge a Denver Museum of Nature and Science BksDenver Museum of Nature and Science Bks Are you a Bee? by Judy Allen a part of Backyard books series Insects by Eyewitness Series: “Here is a spectacular and informative guide to the extraordinary world of insects. Superb color photographs of beetles, bugs, bees, butterflies, and more give the reader a unique "eyewitness" insight into the variety and complexity of insects, their structure, life cycles and behavior.”

Literature Sources Continued… For the three books I found: Bees, Are You a Bee?, and Insects are all literature books easily used in the Elementary classroom. They could be incorporated for students to see in a variety of books what a bee is and learn how to compare bees to other bugs.

Bugscope: Across the Curriculum I think the bugscope activity could definitely used across the curriculum in a variety of ways. Here are just a few ideas I came up with: (1) Students in Social Studies learn about the history of bees and how long they have lived. By using history websites and literature resources. (2) Students can read a variety of literature trade books and see how they relate to what they have read in their science texts. (3) The use of technology is also learned about teaching students how to use interactive websites that will allow them to better grasp the idea of technology and how it relates to the bugscope.