Live Healthy Nevada County Farm to School
Grade Six Farm Field Trip Lesson
INSECT EXPLORATION
Description: Students collect and identify insects, categorize insects as being harmful or helpful,
and discuss organic pest management.
Objective: Introduce students to the wide world of insects, give students an appreciation for
the benefits of insect diversity in a farm ecosystem, and show the different roles insects play.
Standard: Supports 6th grade California State Science Standard 5b: “Organisms in ecosystems
exchange energy and nutrients around themselves: Students know populations of organisms can
be categorized by the functions they serve in an ecosystem.”
Time: 20-30minutes
Materials: Bug identification sheets, magnifiers, list of crops requiring pollination, pen and
paper or white board, containers to put bugs in.
Key Concepts: 1. There are tons of bugs, most of them are beneficial and the world would be
worse without them. 2. They can be grouped by the roles they play. 3. Organic farmers use a
diversity of methods to keep the farm ecosystem in balance without chemicals.
Background: The farm is a complex ecosystem and insects are the most common creatures
there. For every human on earth there are about 1 billion insects. Or 300 pounds of insects for
every pound of humans. Few insects are pests. It is estimated that of the more than a million
insect species we have identified on earth, less than one percent are pests.
Discussion: Who here likes insects? Who thinks they are yucky? Scared of spiders?
What are some problems with them? Bites, spread disease, eat crops
What are some benefits of insects? Pollination; Other insect products: silk, honey, and wax.
Essential link in food chain: Food for birds, bats, snakes, lizards, frogs, anteaters Prey on bad
pests: ladybugs eat aphids. Now imagine that there were NO insects: How would the
world be different? Can you imagine a world without cotton clothes, bird song, chocolate,
most flowers and peaches? Many fruits and veggies and spices and flowers would be gone.
Birds, frogs and the things that eat them would be gone. Not honey or silk. No mosquito bites.
No butterflies, cricket calls, fireflies.
Name your favorite food. Look on the list of crops that need insect pollination and see if that
food would still be around. Remember that many animals are raised on soybeans and alfalfa,
without them we wouldn’t have the majority of our meat and dairy either.
On big commercial farms, farmers use pesticides to kill off pests. The problem with this is that it
kills all the good bugs too and pollutes our streams and rivers. On organic farms like this one,
the farmer takes into consideration the whole ecosystem and tries to keep a balance between
good and bad bugs. One of the biggest tools organic farmers use to do this is observation.
Action
Let the students know that now they will have the chance to be helpers to the farmer by
observing the farm and looking for and identifying garden foes and garden friend pests around
the farm. Pass out the containers and let them know they have a certain time frame (5-15min)
to collect insects. Instruct students to handle insects gently while collecting them. As they find
them, they can bring them back and identify them on the laminated sheets. The facilitator can
keep a list on a white board or paper of what they found, friend or foe, and where they were
found. For example:
Bug
Aphid
Friend
Foe
Location
x
Kale
Magnifers can be used to help identify the bugs. If insects are found that can’t be identified,
they can be saved to ask the farmer about in the closing circle, or brought back to school for a
follow-up research project. The rest can be released back onto the farm.
Wrap up discussion
Look over list together. What did we find? In order to maintain a balanced ecosystem where
pests don’t do too much damage, the farmer uses a variety of techniques beyond observation.
They pick varieties that are suited to our climate and are resistant to pests, keep plants healthy
by making sure they have the right amount of water, light and nutrients, they plant habitat for
beneficial insects, they build to soil to support beneficial bacteria and fungi, rotate crops to
confuse pests, they understand the pest and it’s behavior, they use non-toxic controls like hand
picking, providing barriers or using soapy water spray. When plants are stress free, they don’t
get sick as often. How about you?
(Closing circle question; name one thing you learned about insects.)