HALF WAY TO 100!

Friday was DAY 50!

We can't believe that we are halfway to DAY 100!

We knew ZERO the HERO would have something exciting for us to do on this special day.

He's obviously been watching what we've been doing, because he had lots of 'crafty' minibeasts for us to use.

And what did we do with these 'minibeasts'?

Put them into collections of 50, of course!

We used mini pompoms to make caterpillars with 50 segments to their body.

We created pictures using 50 dragonflies, butterflies or bees.

There was LOTS of counting and sorting into 5 groups of 10.

Here's a slideshow of the DAY 50 action.

As a special treat, ZERO the HERO left a Magic School Bus DISCOVERING BUGS video for us to watch.

Can you see why ZERO chose 'this' particular video for us?

He really is a HERO!

OUR FIRST SPECIMENS

Some of us have already been out
searching for minibeasts.

Here are a couple of specimens brought in so far.

Tamekah brought in a grasshopper. It preferred being up in a corner than on the bottom of her bug viewer.
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(2M, why wasn't Tamekah's specimen a 'katydid'? Go to this site for information about katydids and grasshoppers, then leave a comment when you know the answer - Mrs M)

Riley brought in this bug. We've seen bugs like this before but we don't know what it is.

(2M, go to the CSIRO and download the Backyard Biodiversity Bugs Guide. This guide will help you identify this bug. You can learn more about the family this bug belongs to by also going here.Leave a comment when you know it's identity- Mrs M)

WHY MINIBEASTS?

Why are we investigating 'minibeasts' this term?

Because earlier this week we received an email from a Professor. B. Cairfel

This is what the email said:

Dear 2M Gems,
I have recently returned from a visit to your beautiful city. I spent a great deal of my time there bushwalking, visiting wildlife reserves and nearby national parks. I was surprised by the variety of minibeasts that I saw.

As I am a leading entomologist here in Boulder. I am very interested in learning more about the minibeasts in your locality.

I would like to enlist your help to study these animals. I am keen to know more about the types of minibeasts you have, their features, behaviours, habitats and eating habits as well as their life cycles. I thought your class might also be interested in designing and making devices for collecting and observing the minibeasts.

I am very concerned about the wellbeing of your specimens. The collection and observation chambers will need to be designed so that you do not have to handle the minibeast and the chambers must provide for their every need.

After observing your minibeasts, I would be honoured if you could write a report to share what you have learnt about them with me. Unfortunately, I am not able to return to your great city to meet with you, examine your minibeast viewer and discuss your findings.

Other entomologists and I share our findings with each other via a wiki. This is a great way for people from all around the world to share in a common space. I thought that as you are already familiar with blogging, you might like to create a wiki as a way of sharing your findings with me.

Yours sincerely,

Professor B. Cairfel


We are very excited about Professor B. Cairfel's request but we have these questions -
What are minibeasts?
What's a scientist and what do they do?
What's a report and how do you write one?
What's a wiki?

Today we looked at the first two questions.
In discussing what a 'minibeast' is, realised we had even more questions.
Here's a mind-map that will direct our inquiry into minibeasts


and here is a mind-map to show what we already know about scientists.
To help Professor B. Cairfel learn about the minibeasts in our area, we will need to think and act like scientists too and that's going to be fun!

MINIBEASTS???

2M, have a look at this 'minibeast' movie I found on YouTube.
I want you look at it closely.

Are all the creatures featured minibeasts?
Can you name the ones that are?
The ones that aren't?

Can you name any minibeasts that have been left out?



As a challenge, you might like to make an animoto of what you think 'minibeasts' are.

UPDATE: and Jarvis has already taken up this challenge!

You can check out his minibeast animoto on his blog.