Growing the Future by Teaching Children in the Gardens
www.GrannysGardenSchool.org / 20 Miamiview Drive, Loveland, OH 45140 / 513-324-2873
How Do Invertebrates Survive in the Garden?
Grade One
Lesson Summary
When to use this lesson
Use this lesson to show students how garden animals use their environment. This is best
used in September when insects are plentiful and active.
Objective
Students understand how animals that live in the garden meet their basic needs.
Materials
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Worksheet for each student
Clipboard for each student
Hand lens for each student
Bug boxes, optional
Pencil for each student
Compound eye sheet (from lesson)
Estimated Duration
30 minutes
Ohio Learning Standards Connections
Life Science
Living things survive only in environments that meet their needs.
 Resources are necessary to meet the needs of an individual and populations of individuals.
Living things interact with their physical environments as they meet those needs.
 Effects of seasonal changes within the local environment directly impact the availability of
resources.
Living things have basic needs, which are met by obtaining materials from the physical
environment.
 Living things require energy, water, and a particular range of temperatures in their
environments.
 Plants get energy from sunlight. Animals get energy from plants and other animals.
 Living things acquire resources from the living and nonliving components of the environment.
How Do Animals Survive?
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Today, we’re looking for animals in the garden to understand how they survive. There are
many kinds of animals. Animals can look different from each other, but have the same
needs to survive. What do animals need to live? Animals need air, food, water, living space,
and shelter.
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We’ll be looking for invertebrates. What is an invertebrate? An invertebrate is an animal
that does not have a backbone. Feel your back. Do you feel the bone? We are not
invertebrates.
Revised 7/16 © 2016 Granny's Garden School, Inc. We encourage you to use these lesson plans and change them to fit
your specific needs. We ask only that you credit Granny's Garden School as your source.
Page 1
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Insects and spiders are examples of invertebrates. They don’t have bones in their body, but
do have an exoskeleton on the outside of their body. The exoskeleton is a hard covering.
Can you think of other invertebrates in the garden?
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Many of the invertebrates that we’ll find are insects. How do you know if an invertebrate is
an insect? Insects have three body parts, antennae, six legs, and usually wings. Is a spider
an insect? Spiders have 8 legs so are not insects.
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Today we’ll use a tool called a hand lens. A hand lens is a tool that is used to magnify the
appearance of things. Small things look bigger. The hand lens is worn around the neck.
We’ll be respectful of nature by observing plants and animals by using the hand lens to look
at them and not harm them.
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Show the worksheet. The worksheet has pictures of invertebrates that might be found in the
garden. It’s OK if all of the animals can’t be found.
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Under the name of the animal are three words – air, plant, soil. If you find the animal circle
the word that tells where you saw it. The location helps us understand how the animal
survives in the garden.
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If students see animals that are not on the sheet, the name can be printed on the back of
the paper or a picture drawn.
Looking for Invertebrate Animals
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If you have adults, divide the class into groups so that each adult has a group of students.
The adult helps to discuss how the animals are interacting with plants. If there are no adult
helpers, allow students to explore on their own.
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Allow plenty of time to review what was found and discuss where the animals were found.
As you discuss where each animal was found, integrate a discussion of how the location
might be related to how the animal survives. Discuss body parts of the animals so students
understand how body parts help animals survive.
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Found in the air? Was the animal flying to food or flying away from you for protection?
What body parts are needed to fly to food? Wings and some means to sense the food it
wants. Sometimes eyes are used to find color. Antennae can be used to smell. What body
parts are needed for protection? Wings are used to get away. Eyes are used to sense
danger. Vibrations can be felt with legs. Bees and wasps have another body part for
protection. What is it? Did you find grasshoppers? They use back legs to leap into the air
and spread their wings to escape.
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Found on a plant? Was the animal hiding? Did it blend in with the plant? Was it on the top
or the bottom of a leaf? Some animals use the plants as their shelter and seek protection on
the bottom of leaves. How can it hang on to the bottom of a leaf? Tiny claws are located
at the bottom of legs. Was the animal eating? Bees and butterflies have special mouthparts
to drink nectar. Some animals are eating the plants. Some animals come to the plants to
eat the animals that eat the plants. If you found aphids, look for lady beetles who eat them.
If you found holes in leaves, look for the caterpillar of a butterfly. If you spot bees, stand still
to observe the back legs. Bees collect pollen in pockets on their back legs to take the pollen
back to the nest to feed the bee larva. Aphids on stems insert a needle-like mouthpart into
the stem to drink the plant juices. Spiders make webs in plants to catch their food.
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Found on the soil? Was it easy to spot or did it blend in? The soil is shelter to many animals or
a source to find food.
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Is this a good season for the garden animals we saw today to meet their needs? Compare
Revised 7/16 © 2016 Granny's Garden School, Inc. We encourage you to use these lesson plans and change them to fit
your specific needs. We ask only that you credit Granny's Garden School as your source.
Page 2
the current season to other seasons. As we move into fall and winter, how will animals be
affected?
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Wrap up by reinforcing that animals live only where they can meet their basic needs to
survive. Animals use their body parts to help them survive. Some animals need plants for
food and some animals need other animals for food.
If You Want To Know More
How do you know it’s an insect?
 Insects have a hard exoskeleton (an outside skeleton) covering their bodies. The
exoskeleton is shed (molts) as the insect grows. They are invertebrates, which are animals
that do not have a backbone (or other internal bones). Muscles attach to the exoskeleton.
 Insects have three body parts, the head, thorax, and abdomen. Sometimes the wings cover
up the body parts, like on beetles.
 The head has eyes, the brain, antennae, and mouthparts.
 Insects have compound eyes for seeing and simple eyes (ocelli) that sense light.
Compound eyes have many hexagonal lenses. This gives insects a wider field of vision to
spot movement easily. Compound eyes do not see multiples of the same image, but
instead the many lenses bring together a single, blurred image. Simple eyes only sense
light. Larvae only have simple eyes. Depending on the insect, compound eyes can
have 2 to 23,000 lenses.
 Mouthparts can be chewing (beetles, grasshoppers), sucking (aphids, mosquitoes), a
coiled siphoning tongue (butterflies, moths), or sponging (flies). Insects that chew show
plant damage on leaf edges. Insects that suck show spots across the leaf surface.
 One pair of antennae is used to detect odors, vibrations, sometimes sounds, to balance,
and for touching.
 The thorax is the middle part of the insect and has three pairs of legs for a total of six legs,
and usually two pairs of wings.
 Insects have six, jointed legs. The end of each leg has a small claw for gripping surfaces.
 Most insects have two pairs of wings, but flies only have one pair. Wings can be
transparent, hard, hairy, or scaly. Winged insects are the only arthropods that fly.
 The abdomen contains the heart, eggs in the female, and most of the digestive system. The
abdomen has openings called spiracles along the sides that are used for breathing.
A spider is not an insect.
 A spider is an arachnid that has two body parts, the cephalothorax, and the abdomen.
 The exoskeleton is shed (molts) as the insect grows. They are invertebrates, which are
animals that do not have a backbone (or other internal bones).
 The cephalothorax is a fused head and thorax and contains the brain, jaws, eyes, stomach,
and legs.
 Most spiders have eight simple eyes that are located on the top and in the front of the
spider’s head. Most spiders do not see well. Spider eyes detect light and dark only.
 Spider jaws are located below the eyes and are tipped with fangs that can inject
venom. The venom paralyzes the victim and dissolves its insides. Then, the spider slurps
up the food.
 Spiders have eight legs with tiny claws at the tips. If a spider loses a leg, it will grow back.
 Palps are sensory feelers that look like two short legs attached to the front of the spider.
They are used to taste food.
 The spider’s waist connects the cephalothorax and the abdomen.
 The abdomen contains the guts, heart, eggs in the female, and silk glands.
 Spinnerets are silk glands that are located at the tip of the abdomen. Not all spiders
make webs, like some jumping spiders and the wolf spider, but all use silk to wrap up
prey. Most spiders have 6 spinnerets, but some have 2 or 4.
 Silk starts as a protein liquid that hardens when it comes out of the body. Some silk
threads are sticky, others are non-sticky, and still others are used for egg sacs or
wrapping prey depending on the gland from which the silk originates. Silk threads
Revised 7/16 © 2016 Granny's Garden School, Inc. We encourage you to use these lesson plans and change them to fit
your specific needs. We ask only that you credit Granny's Garden School as your source.
Page 3
stretch. Silk threads are used to catch prey. Silk threads are stronger than a steel thread
of the same thickness.
Is a daddy longlegs a spider?
 Check the body parts to find out that it is not a spider. Instead of seeing two body parts,
you’ll see that the cephalothorax and abdomen are fused into one body part.
 What we call a daddy longlegs is a harvestman. Harvestmen are not spiders, but are in the
arachnid class, as spiders are. Harvestmen have one body part and do not have venom
glands, silk glands, or spinnerets.
 However, a daddy longlegs spider does exist and has venom, silk glands, and two body
parts. Daddy longlegs spiders have short fangs that can break the skin and release venom,
but science has shown that is not the most venomous spider in the world.
Fun Facts
 There are more than a million different kinds of insects and more that haven’t been
discovered. Scientists estimate that there are 10 quintillion living insects
(10,000,000,000,000,000,000), and that there are 40 million insects in a space the size of a
football field.
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Flies have taste buds on their feet. They spit on their food to make it liquid and then suck it
up. Fly eyes take up 2/3 of its head, which would be like increasing human eyes to the size of
a cantaloupe.
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Beetles make up the largest group (order) of insects.
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Butterfly wings are layers of scales that slip off easily in a bird’s beak to help it escape. Most
butterflies and moths live only a few weeks. Butterflies feed on nectar, which is almost pure
sugar, but protein is needed to grow healthy bodies. Pollen contains protein. Butterflies that
eat pollen, too, often live longer – sometimes up to six months.
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“Bugs”, namely true bugs, are an insect order that have beaks that swing forward to eat by
piercing and sucking food. The food is usually plant sugars, but assassin bugs eat other
insects. True bugs have glands on their abdomen that are used to spray a smelly fluid on
predators. Examples: stink bugs, shield bugs, assassin bugs, aphids, cicadas, treehoppers,
froghoppers, squash bugs, milkweed bugs, boxelder bugs.
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Aphids excrete a sweet substance called “honeydew” that attracts bees and ants. Each
female aphid can make 3-6 eggs a day that mature to adults in one week.
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Crickets and long-horned grasshoppers have ears in the form of small membranes on their
front legs. Short-horned grasshoppers have small membranes on their abdomen. Males do
the chirping by rubbing a back leg against a front wing (short-horned grasshoppers) or by
rubbing front wings (long-horned grasshoppers, crickets). Crickets don’t fly, but have wings
to rub to make the chirping sound. Grasshoppers can jump up to 30 times their body length.
Males are smaller than females. Two spikes on crickets are for sensing when they move
backwards. On the female cricket, the third spike in the center is the ovipositor. Crickets
and most grasshoppers lay eggs in the ground; katydids lay eggs in plant tissue. In Asia,
crickets are sometimes pets kept in cages and are a symbol of good luck. Grasshoppers spit
a brown liquid in defense. 4 ounces of hamburger = 12 grams of protein, 4 ounces of
grasshoppers = 20 grams of protein.
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Only female bees have stingers. Male bees are drones and only exist to fertilize the queen.
All workers are female. Honeybees sting once, leave their barbed stinger in the victim, and
die. Bumblebees can sting repeatedly since their stinger is not barbed and does not stay in
the victim. Bumblebee wings flap 200 times per second.
Revised 7/16 © 2016 Granny's Garden School, Inc. We encourage you to use these lesson plans and change them to fit
your specific needs. We ask only that you credit Granny's Garden School as your source.
Page 4
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Ants can lift 50 times their own weight.
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Blobaum, Cindy. Insectigations: 40 Hands-on Activities to Explore the Insect World.
Chicago, Illinois: Chicago Review Press, 2005.
Lingelbach, Jenepher. Hands-On Nature, “Minibeasts”. Woodstock, Vermont: Vermont
Institute of Natural Science, 1986.
Lockwood, Sophie. Grasshoppers. Mankato, Minnesota: The Child’s World, 2008.
Pascoe, Elaine. Crickets and Grasshoppers. Woodbridge, Connecticut: Blackbirch Press,
Inc., 1999.
Solway, Andrew. Classifying Insects. Chicago, Illinois: Heinemann Library, 2003.
“Arthropods General Information Sheet”, The University of Arizona Center for Insect Science
Education Research. http://www.insected.arizona.edu/info.htm
“Label the External Spider Anatomy”, Enchanted Learning.
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/arachnids/label/extanatomy/index.shtml
“Label the Insect”, Enchanted Learning.
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/insects/label/insect.shtml
“What About Pillbugs?” Shrub-Steppe Ecology Series.
http://www.pnl.gov/pals/resource_cards/pillbugs.stm
“Insect Body Parts”, Hein Bijlmakers. http://www.bijlmakers.com/entomology/bodypart.htm
“10 most wanted bugs”, North Carolina State University Biological Control Information
Center. http://www.cipm.ncsu.edu/ent/biocontrol/goodbugs/tachinid.htm
“Beneficial Bug Scavenger Hunt”, University of Kentucky Entomology for Kids.
http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Entomology/ythfacts/resourc/tcherpln/bughunt.htm
“The Flora and Fauna of the Urban Environment”, Sherpa Guides.
http://www.sherpaguides.com/georgia/atlanta_urban_wildlife/wildnotes/index.html
“Insects and Other Creatures in Potting Media”, http://www.agnr.umd.edu
Junior Master Gardener Teacher/Leader Guide – Level One. College Station, Texas: Texas
Agricultural Extension Service, 1999.
“Butterfly Garden Insects Photo Album”, Black Hawk College.
http://facweb.bhc.edu/academics/science/ButterflyGarden/Index.htm
“Let’s Talk About Insects”, University of Illinois Extension.
http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/insects/01.html
“Did You Know that Butterflies are Legally Blind?” by Kasey Yturrald. Arizona State University
Ask a Biologist, 1997-2007. http://askabiologist.asu.edu/index.html, 08-06-09.
Sources
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Sources for Pictures
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Ant - Fir0002/Flagstaffotos,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Meat_eater_ant_feeding_on_honey02.jpg, permission
granted under terms of GNU Free Documentation License version 1.2, 02-12-10
Bee - William Vann EduPic Graphical Resource, http://www.edupic.net/bees.htm#bees, 0909-12
Beetle, Ladybug - William Vann EduPic Graphical Resource,
http://www.edupic.net/beetles.htm, 09-09-12
Beetle, Soldier - D. Gordon E. Robertson, PhD, FCSB, Professor, School of Human Kinetics,
University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada, permission granted under the Creative Commons
Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Goldenrod_Soldier_Beetle,_Ottawa.jpg, 10-01-10.
Butterfly - Butterfly: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Small_white_feeding_on_thistle_flower.jpg permission
granted under terms of GNU Free Documentation License version 1.2, 02-12-10
Caterpillar: James Lindsey at Ecology of Commanster,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pieris.rapae.caterpillar.jpg, 02-12-10.
Cricket, field - http://www.insectimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=5402825, Joseph
Berger, Bugwood.org, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Revised 7/16 © 2016 Granny's Garden School, Inc. We encourage you to use these lesson plans and change them to fit
your specific needs. We ask only that you credit Granny's Garden School as your source.
Page 5
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Daddy longlegs - by R. Bessin 2000,
http://www.uky.edu/Ag/CritterFiles/casefile/relatives/daddy/daddy.htm#leio, 09-28-09
Fly - Jon Sullivan, Public-Domain-Photos.Com, http://www.public-domainphotos.com/insects/fly-4.htm, 02-12-10
Grasshopper - William Vann EduPic Graphical Resource,
http://www.edupic.net/insects.htm#ortho, 09-09-12
Milkweed Bug - William Vann EduPic Graphical Resource,
http://www.edupic.net/insects.htm#ortho, 09-09-12
Praying Mantis - Adamantios, permission granted under the Creative Commons AttributionShare Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mantis-greece-alonisos-0a.jpg, 09-09-12.
Spider - Jon Sullivan, Public-Domain-Photos.Com, http://www.public-domainphotos.com/insects/spider-4-4.htm, 02-12-10
Stink Bug - William Vann EduPic Graphical Resource,
http://www.edupic.net/bugs.htm#plantbugs , 09-09-12
Wasp - Leonard, Jeri. img_1060.jpg. Summer 2011. Pics4Learning. 20 Jul 2016
<http://pics.tech4learning.com>
Revised 7/16 © 2016 Granny's Garden School, Inc. We encourage you to use these lesson plans and change them to fit
your specific needs. We ask only that you credit Granny's Garden School as your source.
Page 6
Compound Eye Vision
Photos from “Did You Know that Butterflies are Legally Blind?” by Kasey Yturrald. Arizona State
University Ask a Biologist, http://askabiologist.asu.edu/, 1997-2007.
Revised 7/16 © 2016 Granny's Garden School, Inc. We encourage you to use these lesson plans and change them to fit
your specific needs. We ask only that you credit Granny's Garden School as your source.
Page 7
Name: _________________________________________
Growing the Future by Teaching Children in the Gardens
How Do Invertebrates Survive in the Garden – Grade One
Circle the word that tells where you found the animal.
butterfly
ant
air
plant
soil
plant
soil
milkweed bug
air
plant
soil
soldier beetle
air
plant
plant
soil
air
stink bug
spider
air
air
lady beetle
soil
air
plant
soil
plant
soil
plant
soil
air
spittle bug
air
plant
soil
air
plant
air
plant
plant
soil
bee
air
plant
soil
fly
soil
air
plant
soil
daddy long legs
grasshopper
aphid
air
soil
wasp
cricket
air
plant
praying mantis
soil
air
plant
soil
In science, we learn that living things interact with their environment to survive. In the garden, we looked for
invertebrates to understand how they meet their needs in the garden. Ask your student what needs are being
met in the garden. Email [email protected] to join us for our next gardening experience!
Revised 7/16 © 2016 Granny's Garden School, Inc. We encourage you to use these lesson plans and change them to fit your specific
needs. We ask only that you credit Granny's Garden School as your source.
Page 8