Impact to My Classroom

# of Students Impacted: 132

An ecosystem is an intricate system that is all interconnected. This grant enhanced my classroom instruction in several ways. I knew the students would be engaged but it went far beyond having students excited to show up for class. We started by predicting what the mantis egg contained. I gave the students a few clues and many of them researched on their own time. Three were clever enough to figure it out! As a former LA teacher, I will do whatever is necessary to trick kids into reading.

The students all know that caterpillars turn into butterflies, but they never really considered that it is very common in the insect world to have a metamorphosis. The lifespan of the insects was also not realized before this project. Since kids see insects see kids on a very regular basis they give little thought to the fact that most live a matter of days or months.

My unexpected outcome was the natives and exotics debate. Once the ladybugs and praying mantis' had lived as long as we could manage in captivity the students wanted to know if I released them. We had in-depth conversations and some debates on the native organisms and introducing an exotic into the ecosystem. This helped reinforce several of the lessons from our field trip to Big Cypress and gives them a little intro to life science next year. 

Unfortunately, state regulations did not permit us to use the entire grant as dragonfly and damselfly are not permitted for Florida purchasers. My students thoroughly enjoyed our ladybugs and praying mantis'.