Workshops

Sessions

  1. Introduction to Plants and Insects - naturalist
    • Objective: Learn basics of plant and animal identification
  2. Food webs, habitat, observation - naturalist & creative
    • Objective 1: Gain understanding of food web and ecological roles of plants and insects
    • Objective 2: Build on skills of observation and description for plants (visual and written)
  3. Insect id skills and recording - naturalist & creative
    • Objective 1: Further ID skills linking recording and habitat
    • Objective 2: Skills of observation and description for insects (visual and written)
  4. Creatives

Session 1. Introduction to Plants and Insects

Objective: Learn basics of plant and animal identification

Inside?

1. Favourites - ice breaker activity

  1. ‘Ice breaker’ activity, note answers on white board (10 mins)
    1. What is your favourite plant, animal, bird, insect ?
    2. Stand up and organise students into kingdom groups, Plant, Animal, Fungi, (Mineral(?))
    3. Ask each in turn What plant, creature or fungi do you like or have an affinity with?

2. Why identify?

  1. Why do we need to identify plants, animals, birds and insects? (5 mins)
  2. 1.7 million species
  3. Scale of diversity, numbers: eg over 1000 bryophytes in UK
  4. Species arranged into families eg 30 different buttercups.
  5. What is a species?
  6. What is a population?

3. What makes a “”?

  1. Discuss what makes a - (10 mins)
    1. ‘Plant’ Leaves, roots, stem, flowers, green? Algae – simple plants
    2. ‘Insect’ Hard exoskeleton: ants, bees, beetles, spiders
    3. ‘Invertebrate’ no backbone: insects and also worms, slugs
    4. ‘Vertebrates’ have a backbone: mammals, amphibians, lizards
    5. ‘Fungi’ grow like plants, but chemical make up more like animals
  2. Basic plant anatomy (10 mins) – examples: leaves – holly, grasses/rushes, twigs - willow/hazel with catkins, roots and flowers – dandelions. using ID keys
  3. Use potted plants as examples, plus collected samples Diagram
  4. Basic insect anatomy (10 mins) – examples Diagram

4. What am I? game (10 mins)

Outside

Apply knowledge

1. Plants (30mins)

  1. Split into groups of 3-4
  2. Explain plant ID equipment - keys/hand lenses
  3. Talk through goals of the ‘hunt’ – find 2 or more plants to identify per team
  4. Send out for hunt

2. Insects (30mins)

  1. Groups of 3-4
  2. Explain bug ID/collection equipment – pooters, sweet nets, pots
  3. Talk through goals of the ‘hunt’ – find 1-2 insects to identify per team
  4. Send out for hunt
  5. Wrap up – reflect, and answer any questions

Note if not possible to go outside

1. Species groups: building on the ID quiz (20 mins)

Grasses Rushes and Flowers ‘hands on’ quiz style, several different plants and insects at 4 stations, to ID and talk about different structures, in small groups or individually.

  1. Grasses, Rushes and Sedges
  2. Umbellifers, violets, speedwell
  3. Docks, sorrels and plantain
  4. Clover, thistle, buttercup and dandelion
  5. Mosses, ferns, lichens….

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Session 2. Food webs, habitat, observation

  • Objective 1: Gain understanding of food web and ecological roles of plants and insects
  • Objective 2 Build on skills of observation and description (visual and written)

Recap

  • Recap on previous session, introduce creative, outline
  • Quickfire quiz on plant and insect anatomy. (10 mins)

Split into 2 groups (50 mins in each)

Group 1 with Creative

Build on Plant ID skills through drawing and describing.

Plants: Outside or pre-collected. Find four different plants (or more), 2 grasses, two flowers/’broadleaved’

  1. Describe - write down and draw the key features of the plants
  2. Plant shape (tall, rosette/flat, twiggy/woody, branched)
  3. Leaf colour (dark, light, green or ‘other’)
  4. Leaf texture (rough, shiny, veined, hairy)
  5. Leaf shape (round, divided, hand/palmlike, leaflets: how many?)
  6. Flowers - colour, shape/number of petals
  7. Flowers arrangement on the stem, one large flower single stem, lots of small florets

Group 2 with Naturalist

1. Ecological Webs discussion (10 mins)

  1. What do we use plants for?
    • Food
    • Useful stuff – rope, cloth, paper…
    • Medicinal plants..
    • Other Function – social: Play surface, trees to climb, to look nice
  2. What do animals and insects use plants for?
    • Wasps make paper nests out of wood
    • Mice make nests out of grasses
    • Bees use pollen and nectar to make wax to house and honey to feed their grubs
    • Birds, nests out of twigs moss grass
  3. What do plants need to grow? Sunlight to create sugars from CO2 in the air and water and nutrients from soil to grow and produce leaves, flowers, seeds and roots
  4. What do insects eat? Plants, other insects….
  5. What eats Insects? Birds, mammals

Food web diagram with an awful lot of arrows

2. Draw a web of life activity (15 mins)

In groups (2-3) Draw a web of life…ecological web using examples [Use chalk, charcoal, string, make a web of life outside]

3. Habitat (5 mins)

Explain and discuss habitat – somewhere something has all that it needs to thrive: food, water, shelter.

4. Find habitat 10 mins

Split into groups (3-4) Ideally greenspace with different habitats (walls, hedge, grass, woods).

  1. In groups look for different habitats.
  2. Describe what species are or could be living in them – lichens, mosses, plants, fungi, insects, spiders, where might mammals live?
  3. Recap and share 2 group activities.

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Session 3. Insect ID skills and recording

  • Objective 1: Further ID skills linking recording and habitat
  • Objective 2: Skills of observation and description (visual and written) for Insects

Recap

  • Recap on previous session
  • Quickfire quiz on plant and insect anatomy. (10 mins)

Group 1 with Creative

Build on Insect ID skills through drawing and describing

  1. Find different insects (with nets)
  2. Draw and make a note of key features:
    1. How many wings
    2. Wing shape and colour
    3. How many legs
    4. Body shape

Group 2 with Ecologist

Compare habitats & count diversity

Working in groups (2-4)

  1. Find two different habitats to compare species numbers and discuss why there is a difference. School garden? Hedgerow? Neighbouring field or woodland? Even a wall with ferns, lichens and mosses. (20 mins)
  2. Introduce idea of quadrats or transects to quantify the data collected. (30 mins)
  3. Count species in a low diversity area and compare with a section of Hedgerow where diversity is easier to see. Measuring species numbers and vegetation height
  4. Walk around school ground (or another safe habitat) to see how many species and habitats can be recorded in an area.

Recap and share 2 group activities (10 mins)

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