· Now instruct all the students to close their eyes and imagine if they couldn’t see. They can only use their sense of smell to find their favorite food. How could they do this? What if it’s not smelly? 

· It would be a lot harder to find your favorite foods! This is how ants communicate! Ants lay down a path that smells a certain way to tell their other colony members where their food is [Define pheromone, write on board]

 · Insects “smell” with their antennae. The chemicals (which produce an odor) attach to special receptors on the antennae. Insects use these chemical receptors to find food, a mate, a place to lay eggs. For example, worker ants leave a scent trail when they find food, but if the trail is disturbed, they become confused. 

· What else do you know about ants? [Gather student responses, draw an ant on the board – don’t forget the antennae!] 

· Do they live alone? [No, ants are social animals and live in large groups called colonies. Define colony, write on board. Colonies are basically like ant families.]

 · How do ants recognize which other ants are part of their own colony? [Ants recognize others from their colony by their scent.] 

· Today we’re going to do some activities to explore ant communication and pheromones!

b. How do we communicate with each other? [Verbal, visual] 

b. Instruct students that they will each be getting a color card in a moment. When I say the magic word for today “pheromone”, you will try to find the other people who belong to your colony. But the rule of the game is that you cannot talk. You can only use your eyes to figure it out! 

c. Pass out one color card to each student. 

d. Say the magic word and make sure that students are following the rules of the game. [No talking!] 

e. Time the students to see how long it takes for them to all find their colony. 

f. Have students return to their seats. Recollect the color cards. 

 b. Emphasize the overall takeaway of the lesson: Insects communicate primarily through chemicals called pheromones. They receive chemical signals through their antennae, process the signal in their brains, and react in different ways depending on the type of chemical.

b. Instruct students that they will each be getting a canister in a moment. Each of the canisters has a cotton ball that has a specific scent. When I say the magic word for today “pheromone”, you will try to find the other people who belong to your colony. But the rule of the game is that you cannot talk. You can only use your nose to figure it out! Let’s make a hypothesis – do you think you will be able to find your colony members more quickly or more slowly than the previous activity? Why or why not? 

c. Pass out one canister without the lid and with a cotton ball soaked in extract to each student. 

d. Say the magic word and make sure that students are following the rules of the game. [No talking!] 

e. Time the students to see how long it takes for them to all find their colony. 

2. There are animals that mimic [Define mimic on board] the pheromones of an ant. 

3. They smell just like an ant, but they are not actually ants, and sometimes don’t even look a lot like an ant. 

4. Do you think you have any mimics in your colony? Let’s find out! 

5. Remove the cotton from your container and look inside. If you find a plastic ant, you’re an ant, but if you see something else, you are an ant mimic! 

6. Once students reveal their true identities, have students put plastic toys back in container, place cotton back in container. Students should return to their seats. Recollect the containers. 

7. Show students some images of actual ant mimics inside colonies.

2. Let’s do another activity to understand how they do this! Each person at your table group should have a different scent in your vial. Pass them around to smell each type, decide which one is your favorite smell. [As students do this, put up signs (for corresponding scents) on the whiteboard.] 

3. Give a string to each student that has a small magnet attached to it. 

4. Call up each group of students, one table at a time (call on the quietest tables first) to come up and place their string underneath their favorite scent. Model what this should look like for the students before having them do it. 

5. Once all students in the class have placed their strings on the board, choose a volunteer to count the number of strings placed underneath each of the scent signs. Write it on the board to keep track. 

6. Lead a discussion with students about the differences. Is there one scent that is more popular than the others? If there are many strings leading to a scent, is it easier to visualize? When ants find food, they put down a pheromone trail so that other members of their colony can come back and find that food too! Then as more ants follow the trail, take the food, and then return to their ant nest, they lay down another trail on top of that first pheromone trail. So then the pheromone gets stronger and stronger so that soon all the ants in the colony are out gathering food from the one point. This is why when you see ant trails leading to your food when you picnic outside or when they eat your pumpkins you leave out for Halloween, or when they find something delicious to eat in your kitchen at home! 

7. So now you know how one tiny ant in your home can lead to an ant infestation! 

8. Why can’t we smell these trails? Elicit student responses. Brief discussion about scent receptors and how we can detect certain scents, but not others!

Ask them how ants tell who is part of their colony and who is not? [pheromones]

 Ask them how ants tell their family/colony members they found food? [by laying down pheromone trails] Now ask if they have other questions about ants!

2. Provide students with the necessary materials and direct them on where to place the plates around the ant hill(s). 

3.  At time intervals of 1 hour, 1.5 hours, and 2 hours, have groups return to their area and count the number of ants on each food sample and record the data in journals.

4. Have students calculate the average number of ants found on each sample and create a graph on Excel depicting their results.

Colony: a community of animals or plants of one kind living close together or forming a physically connected structure 

 

Anthill: a pile of earth made by ants as they dig their underground nest. 

 

Worker Ants: ants that leave the nest to find food for the rest of the colony 

 

Antennae: one of the jointed, movable, sensory appendages occurring in pairs on the heads of insects and most other arthropods. 

 5 paper plates (for each group)
Food samples (for each group): cookie, apple, bread, carrot, meat

Art supplies: colored construction paper, scissors, markers

Students
 Journal to collect data  Pen/pencil 

Laptops 

What types of human foods do ants eat? 

Do ants prefer foods that are sweet? Salty? Sour? 

-How many body parts does an ant have?

-Do ants have antenna’s?

-What is the part of the body that hold the antenna’s?

-Which part of the body holds the legs?

-Ants are a type of _______.

-Which ant is responsible for reproduction and is key to the survival of an ant colony?

-TRUE OR FALSE: All insects have 2 or 3 body parts, and 6-8 legs. 

-Our ant farm is what type of ants?

-If there is an estimated 22,000 ants roaming the world, and only 12,500 are identified, how many are not identified?

-abdomen

-soldier ant

-female ant

-male ant

-wings

-worker ant

-22,000

-12,500

-colony

-Dinoponera Ant

-Panda Ant

-Fish Hook Ant

-Velvet Ant

-Bullet Ant

-Exploding Ant