Teachers and Students

Insects have a great deal to offer students and teachers alike. Queensland Museum has devised tasks for teachers and students based on insect studies.

• The Insect Collection Task is an opportunity for students to learn practical skills and interact with their local environment to gain an insight into the diversity of the local insect population.
• The Urban Ecological Study, a case study of an urban environment, provides students with secondary data to analyse and synthesise the impact of change on an ecosystem. Students are able to use real data collected by scientists from Queensland Museum for the Terrestrial Invertebrate Status Review (TISR) of Brisbane City.

Insects have many advantages for use in the classroom:

• Insects are easily available. Every school ground, park, back garden, roadside verge or bushland remnant has abundant insects in warmer months.
• Insect studies are not yet constrained by strong conservation considerations. Invertebrate populations are very large. It has been estimated that there are more insects in a gum tree than there are leaves on that tree. A few commonplace insects kept under correct conditions in a classroom will not adversely affect population numbers. There are growing ethical constraints on the use of vertebrate specimens for school teaching.
• Insects are easily preserved, displayed and stored. They are ideal for student collections.
• Many insects are easily kept alive in the classroom. Direct observations of their life history and behaviour are possible.
• Most apparatus required for insect study is cheap and simple, easily improvised from readily available materials.