Minibeast Detectives

Source:

Second Nature - Environmental Studies Pack (5-14) available from the RSPB

Craigellachie National Nature Reserve, Education Pack produced by SNH

Schools Out - Fieldwork Made Easy: A teacher's pack for 5-14 Environmental Studies produced by Highland Environmental Network School Group

Time

20-60 minutes

You will need

• pooters
• bug pots
• magnifying glasses
• minibeast keys (see downloads and additional information below)
• recording sheets (see downloads)
• pencils

Did you know?

Ranger services are often able to provide field equipment and expertise on the day, to help school groups. 

Before the activity

Liaise with your local ranger service, if possible

For recording the minibeasts, decide whether to take paper, nature journals or choose worksheets from the downloads section below

Show the children any worksheets and equipment they will be using during fieldwork and ideally get them to practice using the pooters. Explain the importance of returning all their catches back to where they were caught, and being very gentle and careful with them.

The activity

Start by looking with the children for evidence of minibeasts. Look for:

• holes in leaves (caterpillars?)
• holes or tunnels in dead wood (beetle larvae)
• cuckoo spit (leafhopper eggs and larvae)
• galls (produced by small wasps which lay their eggs in plant tissue)
• webs (can they find the spider?)

Then get them to sit very still looking and listening and let the minibeasts come to them.

• can they hear crickets, dragonflies or bees?
• can they see butterflies, beetles, ants?

Let the children search for mini-beasts, encourage them to peer amongst vegetation and look under stones or logs - which will need to be carefully replaced afterwards. Explain that you want them to find and draw as many minibeasts as they like. Hand out pooters, pots and magnifying glasses and stress that the animals need to be returned to where they were caught, unharmed, after they are examined and drawn.

Ask them to add notes about what their minibeast was doing and how it moved, what they think it would eat and what they think might eat it. It would also be useful to sketch in a bit of background to put the minibeast in context, for example the leaf or stalk the animal was on.

Suggested Follow up

Make a class display of a cross section of the area where you did your field work. Place the children's drawings of their minibeasts in the appropriate habitats.

Get the children to research and draw a food chain or web for a chosen minibeast

Downloads

• Worksheet Minibeast Detectives
• Worksheet suggestions within the Minibeast Section of  Schools Out
• Quick minibeast key

Additional Information

• The Field Studies Council have a series of inexpensive, colour, laminated, fold-out guides.
• All kinds of information about minibeasts on the buglifewebsite

Curriculum Links

• Science - main
• Expressive Arts - main

Age Range

2,3