Incredible Insects Try-It

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Incredible Insects is a Brownie Try-It from the Girl Scouts of Black Diamond Council.

Girls will learn about insects in fun ways, such as through games, artwork, skits, and snacks. Girls will learn about the body parts of insects, how to safely capture insects, study them and release them back to their environment, and learn to distinguish harmful from harmless insects. Girls will make their own bug glasses and antennae.

To earn the Incredible Insects Award, Brownie Girl Scouts must complete 4 activities.

# Activities

1. 1. 1. All insects have three body parts. They can never have two hundred. Show you understand this by playing the game "Ants on the Loose." To play "Ants on the Loose", choose a player to be IT. Divide the rest of the girls into teams of three. Each player is a body part of an "ant" who must join together with two other body parts (by holding on to other teammates at the waist) to make a whole insect. The player who is IT is minus two body parts and must chase the ants by attempting to attach herself to one of them. Start by telling the ants to move around. Remind the groups that they must stay attached as they move. Any ant that becomes unattached is a dead ant and must sit down. Then tell IT to begin her chase and try to hook onto the last person making up one of the ants. When she is successful, the first person on the tagged ant (the head) must unhook and become IT. Play continues with the new IT attempting to hook onto another ant and all dead ants rejoining the game. More to do: Discover another game or use your imagination to make up one that will help you and others learn about insects.

2. Learn how to distinguish harmful from harmless insects. List reasons people like and dislike insects. What are some of the ways to control insects without using chemicals? All living creatures need four things to survive: food, water, shelter, and air. Pick an insect, learn all about it. Draw what you have learned. Draw your designs on heavy cardboard, cut it out, and color both sides. Punch a hole in the top of each piece. String them and hang from a twig. Then, find out how insects use camouflage to protect themselves from predators. One way is to take a walking stick walk. Each girl uses eight colored pipe cleaners for each walking stick and makes four or five walking stick insect figures. The leaders hide all the walking sticks insects in plain view along a path. After hiding the walking stick insects, the girls follow the path looking for the insects, counting silently as they walk, but not pointing them out. They then turn and walk back collecting the insects and counting them. Discuss why some were harder to find (green on green, brown on brown). More to do: Learn rules to safely capture insects then study them in their habitat, record findingsrelease insects back into their environment safely.
3. Make a special snack that was inspired by your insect friends. It could look like an insect - Beetle Salad, Ants on a Log, etc. or it could come from an insect like this recipe: Honey Balls: 1/3 cup honey, 1/2 cup peanut butter, 1/2 cup powdered milk, 1 envelope unflavored gelatin (optional) Sunflower seeds, raisins, or anything else you want to add, granola or wheat germ. Mix the first five ingredients together. Roll into balls. Roll balls in granola or wheat germ. Enjoy! OR find different types of honey and have a honey tasting party.
4. Create a piece of artwork that is inspired by insects. It can be a drawing, a poem, a collage, or a sculpture.
5. Take part in a skit, play, song, or dance about insects. You may want to use costumes or make bug glasses and antenna to use in your performance. Bug glasses: Use three pipe cleaners and two cups from an egg carton. Use one pipe cleaner as a nose connection piece and the others as ear pieces. Cut eye holes. Antennae: Scrunch a long piece of foil, form into a circle to fit around your head like a head band. Scrunch two more pieces of foil with knobs on the ends for the antennae and wrap around the head band.

# External Links

Council's Own Home Page
Incredible Insects Try-It