Part of Lesson Plan: Integrated Pest Management

Activity Overview / Details

Spend the last ten minutes of this class period explaining the bug research paper project. Instruct students to get out their notes page or a blank sheet of paper. Give students bug identification books or internet websites to be able to identify which bug, pest or worm they came back with. Ask them to write down the following requirements for the bug research paper project: Name of pest and description of body parts and looks, pest function or purpose, effects - positive or negative on agriculture, methods of control or extermination or positive uses where applicable. Some students will have picked beneficial pests, some will not. So some will write about how to get rid of them and some will talk about how they could be used in a positive light. On the next day in class I would allow students to do internet research and gather the answers to the questions for this paper. Hopefully you have access to a computer lab on campus or your students have computers at home (1 hour of time). Another method may be to purchase a class set of "bug books" or see if any horticulture books you may already have contains some of the bugs your students have found. On the third day I would collect the students research papers and ask them to tell us the coolest thing they learned about their pests and if it was beneficial or not to agriculture. These presentations should be just a couple of minutes (40 minutes for 25-30 students) for each students allowing you time at the end of the period to do a ball toss closure activity (10 minutes). To conduct the ball toss just get a soft, small object, gather students in a circle and review what they have learned about integrated pest management. As the teacher you would toss the ball to a student - ask them a question, if they get it right they can toss it to anyone of their choice, if they get it wrong they toss it back to you and you pick another student. This is a quick, easy way for you to review with your students on any topic.