| Background: Students should be familiar with general insect
anatomy. Objectives: Students will be able to recognize the complexity of
the insect eye and understand the differences between the human and the insect eye.
Materials: Drinking straws, scissors, tape, see-through red
plastic
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| Procedure: |
1.
Give each student approximately six drinking straws and ask them to cut them in half.
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2. Next, bundle the pieces together and wrap a piece of
tape tightly around the straws. |
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3. Tell the students that they have just constructed a
model of the compound insect eye. Discuss with students the differences between human and
insect eyes (Whereas humans view the world in connected wholes, many insects can only see
things divided into thousands of parts, depending upon the number of facets that make up
their eye). |
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4. Next, give each student a piece of red plastic (red
food wrap works well) and ask them to look through it at the room around them. Ask them to
look at a red object or red text. (This activity is done to demonstrate that, although
insects can see many color families such as yellow, blue, green, violet, and ultraviolet,
most insects cannot see the color red.) |
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5. Discuss the student’s findings as a group. |
| Assessment: Have students draw a picture of an object in the
room that is seen through an insect’s point of view. Have them draw this same picture
from a human’s point of view. Going Further: Ask
students to think about this question: If insects cannot see the color red, how are red
flowers pollinated?
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