Fire Ant Physiques: What's Buggin' You

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Activity: What’s Buggin’ You?

Build a three-dimensional (3-D) model of a fire ant. Learn the different parts of an ant and new vocabulary words.

This is a picture of the finished model. Photo by Bart Drees.

Overview

Use a pattern to build a three-dimensional (3-D) model of a fire ant. They will learn the different parts of an ant and new vocabulary words.

Objective

Learn the body regions of the ant and compare them to other insects.

Materials

Instructions

  1. Cut out the parts of the Red Imported Fire Ant Model.
  2. Assemble the parts according to the instructions.
  3. Glue the labels onto your worksheet and compare the ant model with other types of insects, noting the similarities and differences.
  4. If you want, you can color the ants with natural or customized color patterns.

Alternative Activities

Color the worksheet and label the body parts. Make a fire ant model out of balsa wood (Fire Ant Model instructions and template)

Wrap-up

  • After comparing ants to butterflies, grasshoppers or other common insects, think about the similarities and differences of the types of insects.

Additional Information for Instructors

The students may work individually or in teams to assemble several Red Imported Fire Ant Model kits (see the appendix of the KIDzANTS Teacher Manual. Besides the kits, you may also need sandpaper or a file to sand the edges of the parts. Or, the students may simply color the Parts of an Ant Worksheet, and label the body parts found in the original KIDzANTS Teacher Manual, which was included in the original release of the KIDzANTS Red Imported Fire Ant Youth module developed by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.   NOTE:  This was the original manual developed for the KIDzANTS program.  All ordering information is invalid.  You can find links to newer fire ant fact sheets at this link,

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