Bugwise for Schools
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© Australian Museum
Bugwise for schools brings the world of invertebrates to your students, engaging them in real science in local environments. Find out what insects and spiders you are sharing your schools with and why they are vitally important to a healthy planet.
Information for Teachers
Bugwise resources includes guides (Invertebrate Identification Guides, Butterfly Shapes and Colours), tools (Web2spider, How to collect Invertebrates, Herbivore2Damage) and a teachers resource kit (Plant2pollinator) that can be used to increase understanding of the role of invertebrates in the environment and enable students to focus on their local environment, learn about invertebrate groups and their incredible diversity.
Bugwise is also designed to meet many outcomes and objectives in the current NSW Science and Technology K-6 Syllabus, Stage 4,5 Science and Stage 6 Biology and curriculum-integrated Environmental Education.
The Bugwise resources will also enable you to fulfill many criteria of your School Environment Management Plan (SEMP) and the goals of an integrated environmental education curriculum - learning about the environment, investigating in the environment, caring for the environment and adopting life-long practices to protect the environment.
Information for Students
Sometimes issues like climate change, habitat loss and pollution can seem too big for any of us to respond to. Bugwise will help you focus on your local environment and observe the changes in it. Insects provide us with lots of clues about environmental changes. Bugwise will help you get to know invertebrates and how they impact on our environment and how they are impacted on.
How did Bugwise start?
Originally designed by Australian Museum scientists to provide tools for non-scientists to measure ecological change in rehabilitated environments, Bugwise provided guides and tools to monitor insect and spider abundance and diversity. Easily adapted for schools, the tools, guides and related articles will help enrich any study involving invertebrates and harness the natural enthusiasm students have for the world of beetle, bugs and spiders in a simple, engaging and fun way. Environmental science at its best!
