By Cody
Brownbill

 At first you might think that they are small and not important, but when you start to look at what they do there is so much you can learn from them.
 A wise king who lived 3000 years ago said “Look at the ant, watch his ways and be wise”.
 So by studying what they do, we can learn things to help us in our community.

 Some researchers believe that for every human there are at least 200 000 ants.
 Ants are social beings because they live and work together in communities.
 An ant community is called a colony.

 The ant colony is made up of three classes.


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The Queen
Workers
Male or Drones3
Life in a colony is very organised. Each member has a job to do.

 The queen - has one role to lay eggs, she does not rule over the other ants, but has the most important job. The whole colony would eventually die if there was no queen.
 The worker ants – all the workers are females and may have one or several jobs. Some of these jobs are–to gather food for the colony, protect the nest from predators and look after the queen and young ants.
 The male ant - have only one job, to mate with the queen.

Similarities :
 We both have to work to survive
 We both live in a community and try to look out for each other in that community.
 Worker ants take care of the larvae by feeding and washing them. Just like in our families, the children are taken care of.
 Ants can also communicate with each other, just like humans communicate.

Differences:
 Ants cannot choose the job they want to do.
 They are born into that role.
 Humans can chose thhhe job we want to do and make our own decisions.
 We also have higher intelligence.
 Our decisions can be influenced by good things or feelings.

 Everyone would work together to collect food and secure housing.
 No one would have more or less.
 It is great that humans get to have a choice.

Great things we can learn from the ants.
 They show good co operation, industry and order.
 They keep their nest very clean
 Show concern for their fellow workers
 Persistence and determination, doing everything possible to carry out their task.
 We need to put in diligent effort to get good results.

I believe not.
 Living like ants would not let humans have a choice.
 The great difference us and ants is that ants are mostly governed by instinct. That means they do their job automatically without thinking to much too much about it.
We humans were created to have a choice. We can choose to be lazy or choose to work.
 For me I would rather have the choice of being able to work, be part of my family and playing with my friends.

They are adventurous and they work hard
They help plants grow and never say NO.
They are really smart and they are cool
They don’t even have to go to school.
Working in the dirt, walking down the trail
Watch out for the grasshopper!
But he will fail.
To catch the wandering ant, as his mates will help him out
When they get the job done they will start their work again.

How stuff works-ants http://www.google.com.au/imgres?q=ant+colony&hl=en&safe=active&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=0-
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Nature Close –Up Ants. By Elaine Pascoe