Beneficial Insects Lesson for Middle School Biology

May 18, 2019

Entomology Guest Speaker: Beneficial Insects Lesson for Middle School Biology

This is the 25th lesson in a series of 32 hands-on lessons covering middle school biology from a Christian perspective. This lesson focuses on beneficial insects! I used this plan while teaching a 55 minute middle school biology class. Each lesson plan includes homework assignments and a variety of hands-on activities to make each lesson engaging & memorable. Use these fun lessons with your classroom, homeschool, after-school program, or co-op!

These lessons are written for a class that meets once a week. If your class meets 5 days a week, simply do this lesson one day a week and use the homework assignments (at the bottom of the page) for the work for the other days of the week.

Homework Collection

Pass out tickets to students who completed the homework and did the extra credit. Collect the homework. (Make sure students put their names on them first.)

Entomology Guest Speaker

For today’s class we invited a local entomology expert from our local 4-H/IFAS Extension Office to speak to our class about beneficial insects. He brought roasted termites for the students to taste and showed power point slides and YouTube videos. The YouTube video of the predatory wasp was the most memorable.

The students loved this predatory wasp video. * Warning: It’s not for the faint of heart.

Visiting a beekeeper and seeing mounted insect collections

Other Options

If this isn’t an option, you could invite other speakers or take a field trip. In the past our guest speakers have included a beekeeper, a butterfly farm owner, a forestry department ranger (who evaluates pine beetle damage), and a teenager who collects and mounts insects.

If allowed, you could instead take a field trip to a park to collect or identify insects. We have also taken field trips to our local Museum of Natural Science, which has a butterfly pavilion, and we have taken a field trip to visit a beekeeper.

A Beka’s Science: Order & Design science textbook

Homework

Friday: Read the Grasshopper Dissection Guide. Highlight or underline 5 bits of information you think are interesting or important.

Monday: Complete the Grand Grasshopper Worksheet which includes External Grasshopper Coloring and the Internal Structure of a Grasshopper (on p. 7)

Tuesday: Read the Crayfish Dissection Guide. Highlight or underline 5 bits of information you think are interesting or important.

Wednesday: Label as many parts as you can on the Cool Crayfish Worksheet which includes the External Crayfish picture (#18 on the worksheet) and the Internal Structure of the Crayfish (the last activity) from https://www.biologycorner.com//worksheets/crayfishinternal.html . (You will need to cut and paste the second link as this site limits how many live links I can include.)