Invertebrates

(click for larger)

Invertebrates are ideally suited for examination with QX5. A wide variety of activities are possible. First, bugs are abundant, and you can find them anywhere. Look under a brick in the school playground will uncover interesting invertebrates (see Around the School). Smaller invertebrates can be extracted from top soil with a shining light on a soil sample and collecting organisms (see attached pdf on such an exercise from the Center for Ecosystems Survival).

Carolina Biological (http://www.carolina.com) also sells some interesting samples. Fruit flies (Drosophila) are described in another activity on this site (see Fruit Flies and Genetics).

A wonderful and amazing organism for kids to study at the elementary school level is the Planarians, flat worms that have a remarkable ability to regenerate. Kids can watch their behavior, which is interesting alone. However, they can also perform a regeneration experiment by cutting a worm in half and watching (over 1-2 weeks) the two halves reform complete organisms. See Planarian regeneration for more details on this experiment.

Many organisms sold by Carolina are interesting. Daphnia (water fleas) are interesting crustaceans- arthropods with 2 pairs of antennae. With QX5, you can see their internal organs. Vinegar eels are small nematodes (round worms) that are good for observation.

Also, Planarians, Daphnia, and vinegar eels are possible to culture (if you would like to have students learns to culture organisms) and excellent instructions for culturing are found in the Carolina Biological manual “Carolina Protozoa and Invertebrate Manual”. This manual comes free with orders of protozoa or invertebrates or you can order it separately for ~$4 Cat. 13-1065; https://www2.carolina.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?jdeAddressId=&catalogId=10101&storeId=10151&productId=47499&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=&crumbs=n

 

Movies:

 

C. elegans (roundworm) side lighting at 200x (12 MB movie)(1.5 MB version)

Daphnia (8.3 MB movie)

Planaria (movies)

Roundworms (322 KB movie)

Star Fish (728 KB movie)

Tick (1.3 MB movie)

 

If these movies do not work, click here for help.