I wonder what would happen if lots of Manduca lived in a small space...

Lesson Overview:  

Students will look at insect crowding, making predictions, and observations as they watch for specific behaviors. The following is a great experiment that deals with issues of crowding and fighting that takes place during the early stages of Manduca's life. These experiments or extensions should be run in the classroom over the next few days. Manduca only exhibit this fighting behavior during a small window in their life cycle, therefore timing is important for this inquiry.

Objectives:

  1. discuss why humans fight
  2. look for similarities in animal behavior
  3. make predictions about what they think will happen
  4. support their predictions
  5. draw conclusions from what they observe

Subject Area Focus: science & writing

Materials:

Procedure:  

  1. The objective of the following brainstorm/discussion is that humans can act like animals but they have the skills and abilities not to!
  2. The teacher should begin the lesson by initiating a discussion about:
    - what makes people angry
    - what will they fight over
    - when do they fight
    ** A class list can be brainstormed and recorded on the board/overhead.
  3. Teacher should ask students:
    - What things on the list apply to insects?These ideas can be stared or otherwise noted.
    - Should we add anything else to our list?
  4. If the teacher desires or time permitting, the class can discuss ways in which people can solve problems listed without violence.

    The following is a great experiment that deals with issues of crowding and fighting that takes place during the early stages of Manduca's life. These experiments or extensions can be run in the classroom over the next few days.

An Inquiry Exercise in Crowding and Fighting:

  1. Place eight insects on one small piece of food before science class begins.
  2. Ask the students:
    -What do you think will happen as the food starts to disappear?
    - Would this happen in the wild too?
  3. Ask students to record their predictions in thier observation notebook. Give time for sharing as a whole group or in a think-pair-share format.
  4. Over the next three days check to see if your predictions were right.
  5. After students have observed for three days ask them to consider how the actual experiment differed from their initial observatioins and predictions. Ask the students what the reasons behind these observations might be.
  6. Have students recommend variations to the crowding experiment to see if they can increase or decrease fighting with their variables.



*If desired "fighting" is not occurring try using a heating pad to warm up the animals.

*As an extension to the experiment the teacher could add a larger insect to a group of smaller insects. This extension is not suggested for squeamish individuals.

*Connecting Manduca fighting with human fighting could be attempted through drama exploration. The teacher or students can create scenarios that bring people into conflict and have students role play them trying to seek resolutions.

Third Observation Day Discussion

  1. Ask students what they think would happen if forty insects had to share a single piece of food.
  2. Teacher can carry out this experiment or this discussion can be used on a purely theoretical basis, but it is cool to see!
  3. As a reflection on this crowding experiment, ask students to try and make connections between what they observed happening to the Manduca over the past few days, and what might happen with humans in a similar situation. The connection a teacher would be looking for is overpopulation and crowding in the world around us.