By Ellen Booth Church Whether you are investigating seeds, plants, animals, or insects, you will need to help children become conscious of the fragility of life. Don't forget to include art materials and notebooks for children to create field recordings of their observations. Insect Investigations Questions of where bugs come from, where they live, and what they eat are great starting points for experimentation. A group interested in insects may like to study the life cycle of the fruit fly. Fruit flies are among the easiest to collect and observe.
Children can place cut pieces of ripe fruit in two open glass jars.
They can place one jar outside, and the other in the science center. Ask children to predict and observe which jar will attract the most flies. Soon, tiny flies will be attracted to the fruit inside the jars. Once they have appeared, you can cover the jars with cheesecloth. The eggs left by the flies will mature and hatch into new young flies and then grow into mature flies, thus completing their life cycle.