ingridscience

Ask what are the needs of an animal to stay alive? (food, water, air, shelter).
Show a real wood bug. Ask if students have seen them before in parks or gardens.
Class discussion of the needs of wood bugs, based on students' knowledge or observation of wood bugs in their natural environment (wood bugs are often found in the fall or spring under logs and rocks in gardens and forests).

Build or show a habitat which satisfies the needs of wood bugs:
A chunk of rotting wood or bark provides shelter underneath it, as well as some food.
The habitat can be opened briefly each day to exchange the air.
A layer of damp sand keeps the air moist. Wood bugs do not like puddles, but they need a damp environment. Keep the sand damp (but not soggy - it is easy to make it too wet). Sprinkle drying sand with dechlorinated water (tap water let to sit for a couple of days).
Food is vegetables (they love potato), also fresh leaves such as lettuce, and optionally some partway rotted leaves. Remove any food that becomes mouldy.

Store the habitat in the coolest area of the classroom.
Add wood bugs to the habitat from a walk, previous experiments, or from a collection made by the teacher in advance.

Extended discussion ideas:
Wood bugs’ food is mostly rotting vegetation, but they do not like to be too wet, so wood bugs are often found in the upper layer of a compost heap.
Wood bugs are decomposers and eat dead plants (as well as some live ones). Decomposers are a crucial part of the cycle of life on earth. They eat up rotting things, and their poop ("faeces") is soil! So they clear the ground of dead things and make soil for plants to grow in.
Wood bugs need water to drink, as do all living things. They also need water in the air from which they obtain their oxygen (they do not breathe oxygen gas as we do). Wood bugs evolved from, and are closely related to, shrimp-like marine organisms. (The first woodlice were marine isopods which are thought to have colonised land in the Carboniferous period.) Like the ocean animals they are related to, they have gills! They use their gills to extract oxygen from water. Because of this, they always need to be in a moist environment, and will die fast if they dry out.
For shelter, wood bugs like to live in moist (but not soggy) dark places, such as under paving stones, rocks and chunks of rotting wood.
See reference for more information and different kinds of wood bugs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodbug. I believe I collected wood bugs from these three families: Oniscidae, Porcellionidae and Armadillidiidae (pill bugs, which roll into a ball).

Students take care of their wood bug habitat. Take the lid off periodically to make sure there is enough oxygen in the container. Remove any food that mould grows on. The habitat needs to be moist but not soggy. A habitat can be kept for just a week, or several weeks. If kept for several weeks, babies may be born in the habitat. Do not pick up the wood bugs with fingers as they are very delicate. Use a paintbrush if you need to move them around.

Look for evidence of the wood bugs eating (food with nibbles out of it), excreting (brown spots of faeces), growing (a shedded exoskeleton), having babies (new baby wood bugs; the eggs are too small to see with the naked eye).

When the habitat is ready to be dismantled (usually after a couple of weeks, maybe a month if the classroom is cool), they need to put back where they came from (choose a non-frosty day - spring and fall are when wood bugs are not hibernating, so the best time). Could be combined with a decomposer hunt activity.
Students use a paintbrush to flick the wood bugs from their habitat into a garden or sheltered spot.

Note: I am not doing this activity much any more - it is not good science.
The wood bugs in the food-choice dishes are too unsettled to actually be choosing the best food to eat.
Make a discussion instead about the role of wood bugs (vegetarians) and other decomposers - add these foods to the habitat and look for evidence of any of them being eaten.

Set-up prior to experiment: a large petri dish with fresh leaves, composted/rotten leaves (freeze lettuce for an hour to speed up decomposition) and potato slices. One dish per table group works well.
Wood bugs, one per student in closed containers kept moist with a layer of wet tissue.

Students tap their wood bug into the petri dish with the food choices, and put on the lid. Adults can help by gently pushing the wood bug with a paintbrush if necessary. Cover so that it is dark inside, and leave for a while.

Class discussion or another wood bug activity while the wood bugs to adjust to their new environment. Ideas to discuss: Talk about how different animals eat different things.
Optional prediction: students are asked to predict whether wood bugs would prefer the fresh salad leaves or the partway rotten leaves. For younger age groups, it is best if predictions are done anonymously: ask students to close their eyes, and vote by raising their hand. Class predictions are recorded on the board. A second vote of what the students might like to eat for their own dinner given the same choices lightens up the heaviness of predicting at this age, and gives some thought to how different animals might have different food preferences. (Note: I would recommend skipping this prediction step if the students have not already done a lot of hands-on science with careful observation and recording already. Accurately seeing and recording scientific phenomena is the first step to be mastered, before adding the complexity of thinking ahead and predicting).

At their desks, students are given a sticky note for each wood bug, then they can open the dishes. They look where each wood bug is found when they first open the dish (they are likely still moving around), and write each wood bug location on its own sticky note. Students may need help finding the last wood bugs if they are hidden under leaves.

Each student adds their sticky note to a class bar chart, above the correct food choice column. There is much variability in what food the wood bugs are found on (realistically because the wood bugs are more interested in escaping this foreign environment rather than choosing what food to eat).

The results of this activity can dictate what food to add to a classroom wood bug habitat. Even if no wood bugs were on potato, make sure that some is added to the habitat (wood bugs seem to potato it a lot).

Set-up prior to experiment: a box magnifier or small clear dish, the bottom lined with damp tissue and containing a live wood bug, for each student.
For biomes lesson, keep wood bugs in their habitat, and provide magnifiers.

If using them, show students how to use magnifiers.

Keeping the wood bug sealed in the container, students look at them closely, and make a scientific drawing: drawing what they see (not what they think they should see). Sometimes they will see a feature that they don't know what it is, but that is OK.
Class discussion, led by what students notice. Points to include: colour, body parts of wood bugs, and how each of these might help the wood bugs survive.

Wood bug information:
They are a colour that makes them well camouflaged in the dark brown and grey places they are often found.
Wood bugs have 14 legs - they are crustaceans, related to shrimp.
Wood bugs have antennae for feeling around and smelling.
They have an exoskeleton (hard outside shell) to protect them, which is segmented. They do not have bones.
Only some wood bug species are able to roll into a ball.
Wood bugs are closely related to (and evolved from) ocean-living crustaceans such as shrimp (thought to have colonised land in the Carboniferous period). Like the ocean animals they are related to, they have gills - using them to extract oxygen from water (the gills are flat white structures underneath near the tail). Because of this, they always need to be in a moist environment, and will die fast if they dry out.
They are decomposers, an important animal in food chains, eating dead plant and animal matter and turning it into soil.
More info: https://www.thoughtco.com/fascinating-facts-about-pillbugs-4165294
Video about pillbug evolution from ocean crustaceans: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/pill-bugs-emerged-sea-conquer-earth also at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj8pFX9SOXE

Sometimes the eggs under the female can even be seen.

For my lessons, I believe I found wood bugs from these three families: Armadillidiidae (pill bugs, which roll into a ball, likely Armadillidium vulgare), Oniscidae (likely Oniscus asellus) and Porcellionidae (likely Porcellio scaber). Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodbug General information on wood bugs, including photos.
More BC wood bug identification: https://crawford.tardigrade.net/bugs/BugofMonth17.html and https://islandnature.ca/2011/03/whats-that-woodlouse/

Wood bug moulting images: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Molting-A-Armadillidium-vulgare-aft…

For outdoor wood bug habitat hunt:
Students to look for wood bugs, and record where they find them and the conditions (damp/dry, light/dark, warm/cool).
From their data, conclude where wood bugs like to live, and what conditions provide an ideal habitat for them.

For indoor classroom activity:
Set-up prior to experiment: at least one hour before students come into class, set up a habitat on each table group. Each habitat is a clear container with a layer of damp sand on the bottom, a chunk of rotten wood, a rock and five or so wood bugs.
For the lesson, provide each table group with a number of sticky notes corresponding to the number of wood bugs in their habitat. At their desks, each group counts how many of their their wood bugs are under the wood, how many are under the rock and how many are out on the open sand - they will need to gently lift the items to find all the wood bugs.
Students record their results by using one stickie per wood bug, and writing where they are on it (sand/wood/rock). Each group adds their sticky notes to form the columns of a class bar chart.

A classroom discussion with the bar chart determines where the wood bugs most like to live. Usually the wood is preferred over the rock. Why? The wood is a shelter for the wood bugs - it is a dark hiding place. The wood is also a little moist, so keeps the wood bugs damp. (Wood bugs get oxygen from water with their gills - they don't have lungs - so they always need to stay in damp places to survive. They evolved from animals that lived in the ocean, and have retained their gills unlike many other land animals.) In addition, the wood bugs might like to eat the wood.
Wood bugs are also often found on the sand, or maybe burrowed into it. The sand is damp, which they prefer.
Usually the wood bugs are not found under the dry rock, though sometimes they are.

Then ask students to modify the habitats to make them the best for the wood bugs - the rocks can be removed if wood bugs were not found under them, or left if they were. If a lot of wood bugs were found under the wood, add more wood pieces to each habitat. Whatever the results, the sand should be kept in the habitat as it will keep the environment damp.

Conclude that we have given the wood bugs a shelter that serves their needs. If the wood bugs are to be kept in the classroom, they will need food as well - either conduct an activity to determine what wood bugs like to eat, or alternatively, after discussion that wood bugs eat dead plant matter add some wilted lettuce or potato to the habitat.

Introduction:
Nurse logs are formed when a tree falls over, or from the stump of a tree that was felled, and provide an environment for other things to grow. As the log decomposes it provides food and a habitat for many animals and plants. In coniferous forests (e.g. Pacific Northwest Coast) rotting logs provide many of the nutrients of the forest floor.

Some of the photos above show nurse logs that have decomposed completely, leaving only the shape of the roots of the trees that grew on it.
For this activity, find a nurse log that has some of its stump remaining.

Ask students to draw the nurse log, and anything they see growing out of it, or any evidence of life living on it. They can shade in the nurse log (to highlight how much is consumed by the new trees). Examples of living things they might find on a nurse log: hemlock and douglas fir saplings, small huckleberry bush, sword fern or other ferns, lichen, spider webs, bird poop, insects, holes made by insects and birds.
Ask students to smell the wood - the mushroomy smell is fungus growing through the log.

Group discussion of what everyone found, and students can add more items to their drawings, and label anything they did not know the name of.

Use a large sheet of paper or a board, and write "nurse log" at the bottom. This will be the start of a food web. Add in the other names of living things found, with arrows to show who eats who e.g. nurse log eaten by insects, plants, fungi and lichen; insects eaten by spiders and birds; spiders eaten by birds.

More information on nurse logs and how they help seedlings survive: https://asknature.org/strategy/nurse-logs-provide-new-habitat/

Students can collect their own items to look at and/or teachers can provide objects.

Ideas of things to look at:
Your own skin, fingerprint, hair, nails.
Man-made items such as fabrics with different weave densities, paper with different texture and colour printing (to see the individual coloured dots).
Natural organic items such as fur, wood, feathers and seeds.
Natural inorganic items such as crystals (including salt) and rocks with different mineral colours in them.
Living samples such as pond water or soil containing small animals.

A microscope can be set up in the classroom, or outside if power can be run outside.
If any collected specimens are animals, students should ask an adult to help them put it in a collecting with some dirt and/or leaves, and return it to the same place after class.

A sequential magnification of specimens, from looking closely with the naked eye, to looking with a magnifier, to looking with a microscope, give a good sense of what is being looked at. What can you see with the magnifiers that you were not able to see with your naked eye? What were you able to see with the microscope that you were not able to see with the magnifier? It also creates a wonderful zoom into the details upon details in objects - there is so much going on that we don't usually see, and understanding the structure in more detail can help us understand function.

Proper use of magnifiers
Great for younger students.
Hold the magnifier 5-8cm from one eye, and look through it. Hold a finger on the other side of the magnifier, 5-10cm away from it. Then move the finger slightly until it is large and clear (in focus). Students should be able to easily see their fingerprint. The key point is not to have either your eye, or the object being viewed, touching the magnifier.
Use the same method to look at specimens. Sometimes, instead of moving the specimen closer to the lens, it will be easier to move your eye and magnifer (keeping them apart) towards the specimen.
(See the Open Door Website at http://www.saburchill.com/lab/observations/observe01.html). The curved glass makes things look bigger. Ask students to make a drawing of their living thing, showing the details that they can now see with the magnifier that they could not see with the naked eye.

Proper use of stereo (dissecting) microscopes
Good for primaries and up.
Place an object on the stage, and while watching from the side, turn the focus knob to bring the lens as close to the object as possible without touching it. While looking through the ocular lenses on top, slowly focus up until the object is in focus. The stereo microscope magnifies 20 to 40 times, so bridges the gap between the visible and microscopic.

Proper use of transmission (compound) microscopes
Best for intermediate and older students.
The transmission microscope magnifies 40 to 400 times, and can be used to look at small details invisible to the naked eye. The light comes from underneath so the sample must be thin enough for light to pass through, and for the lens to move over. The sample can be mounted on a slide, or simply placed under the lens if it is flat enough to fit. To prepare a slide, place the specimen on the slide and add a small drop of water if necessary. If needed, arrange the specimen with a toothpick. Lay over the cover slip, by lowering from one side. First view the slide at the lowest power (40X), by starting with the objective lens at its lowest point and moving it upwards with the coarse focus knob, until the sample is in focus. Then the higher power lenses can be used in sequence, adjusting the focus using only the fine focus knob.

More detail on microscope use and specimen ideas:
http://www.saburchill.com/lab/observations/observe04.html
Levine, Shar and Johnstone, Leslie. 1996. The microscope book. Sterling Publishing Company

Further magnification in scanning electron microscope images
Show images of familiar living things magnified even further:
scanning electron microscope images at:
http://www.denniskunkel.com
Scharf, David. 1977. Magnifications. Publisher Schocken
Breger, Dee. 1995. Journeys in Microspace. Columbia University Press
or a google image search of "scanning electron microscope images"

You are made up of molecules that come in many different shapes, sizes and colors.
Explore your body, inside and outside, and find different kinds of molecules that make up you.

Some of your molecules are stiff and stack like bricks. They make hard structures like nails. Knock your head to find another hard molecule structure in you. What other hard molecule structures can you find on and in yourself?

Some of your molecules are springy. Springy molecules make elastic structures like your skin. Compare how elastic your skin is with other people's: pinch the skin on your knuckle, then see how long it takes to fall back into place.
In old people, the molecules are no longer as elastic as they used to be, so the skin takes longer to fall back. What other elastic molecule structures can you find on or in your body?

Your blood contains molecules that are red. You can see your red molecules by holding your fingers together and covering the end of the flashlight. Now find molecules on or in your body that are white. The mirror will help you find some of them. What about molecules that are brown? Do you have other colored molecules on or in your body?

Find molecule structures in you that are slimy and ones that are watery.

What other textures and colors can you find on yourself? They are all made of molecules.

Your molecules don't just make the textures and colors of your body. Your molecules also let you move, digest food or sing a song. Think of all the things your body can do. It is your molecules that do it!