Length of sessions: Five 30 minute sessions Three 45 minute sessions Research time for students Introduction Activity (45 minute session) Read The Seeing Stick by Jane Yolen. Ask the students to respond to the story. What does the story mean to you? What do you think the story is saying about seeing and eye sight? What is important about the story? (Take care with the discussion to recognize sensitivities for seeing impaired students and adults.) Following the discussion, brainstorm what the students already know and what they might want to learn about the function and/or care of human eyes. Teacher or student records on butcher paper. Activity 1(Two 30 minute sessions & time for research) Through a discussion, establish what the students know about mantids. Review concerns and questions from the discussion in the Introduction. Through a discussion, establish what the students know about mantids and mantid eyes. Referring to different pictures of insects and other animals, what sense do the students think the mantid depends on to catch its food? (How big are their eyes compared to their body? How much space can they see at one time? Compared to a lion?) Do you think we can learn more about our own eyes by doing experiments with the praying mantid? Brainstorm questions the students have about mantids eyes, human eyes and eye care. Teacher or student records on butcher paper adding to the questions generated in the Introduction. Divide the class in half by interest to learn more about human eyes or mantid eyes. Teacher keeps a record of who is on the teams. Allow time for teams to explore books, observe mantids and begin research and remind them to look for answers to their questions. To assist with the research activity, students can write letters to a mantid with questions and statements or act like reporters and interview a mantid. The group researching human eyes can do the same activity by writing or interviewing a person. Although both teams will do all the experiments, each team is responsible for presenting research on mantid or human eyes. Activity 2(30 minute session) Set-up containers with the mantids for observation and experiment. Small groups of three to five works best for this activity. Have two mantid set-ups so both halves of the class can observe the experiment. Do not feed the mantids for three days before the experiment. Have one student place a live fly (plastic surrogate or raisin on a string) into each container. (If surrogate or raisin is used, move it around as it were a live fly.) Students observe the mantid's response and share what is happening. Students record what they see. The mantid may not catch the fly, but should follow the movement with its head. If the mantid catches the fly immediately, then observe, record and place another fly into the rearing container and continue observations. As a class, share observations and what happened. (What did your praying mantid do? How could you tell it was using its eyes? How many eyes does the mantid have?) Mantids have two compound eyes and three simple eyes. Activity 3(30 minute session) To research and explore human eyes, have students perform experiments on their peripheral vision. Ask the students to stand with their hands out to the side. Have them stare straight ahead and move their arms forward and backwards to see how far people can see to the side. How much do they see? Discuss the differences between the different experiences and how the student's vision was effected. (This activity and resulting discussion may lead to other areas to be explored.) Perform other experiments testing binocular vision. Hold your two index fingers tip to tip at eye level three inches from your face. Look at your fingers with one eye closed. Then with both eyes, focus on the wall in the distance. You should see a floating finger. What image do you see? Another experiment uses 2 straws or pencils. Hold the two straws at arms length in front of you one inch from each other. Look at the wall behind the straws. You should see four straws. For additional activities see AnatoMath © TJ's Enterprises, 1988. Allow time to continue and finish research and set deadline of when they will share with the class. Encourage students to use information gathered in the experiments as part of their reports, interviews or letters. Activity 4(45 minute session) Have teams report findings to their class. In advance choose students to record information on butcher paper, comparing the similarities and differences between mantid and human eyes. Record and graph the number of different colored eyes in the classroom. Average the number of each color. Activity 5(45 minute session) Have the students predict what will happen if the mantid is sprayed with water using the Record Sheet to record their predictions and observations. Experiment #1: Divide the class in half and have the two mantids ready for observations. Choose two students to participate in experiment. Gently mist water on the mantid. Observe and record what the mantid does. (What does the mantid do? What part of its body does it use to clean its eyes?) Have the students compare the results with their predictions, draw conclusions and record. Have the students predict what will happen if their eyes are sprayed with water using the activity sheet to record their predictions and observations. Experiment #2: Repeat Experiment #1 with human subjects. Have one student from each team volunteer to be a subject and one from each team to be the scientist. The scientist will mist the face of student (subject). Class observes and records how the student responds to being sprayed. Have the students compare the results with their predictions, draw conclusions and record. Discuss the similarities and differences between the mantid's response and the student's response. Why were the responses different? [What do we have that the mantid doesn't? (i.e. the function of our eye lids is to keep the eyes clean and protect the eye ball from being damaged.) How does the mantid keep its eyes clean without eye lids?] Closure Activity(30 minute session) Preface reading the following stories by telling the students that they are stories for younger children but you will be using them to talk about the issues the stories bring up. Although the stories are not age appropriate, they can be used to set the stage for initiating a discussion with the students and brainstorming issues about eyes, eye care, sight, etc. Read Spectacles by Ellen Raskin, Arthur's Eyes by Marc Brown or Cromwell's Glasses by Holly Keller. Discuss responses to the story and the importance of caring for our eyes. What feelings come up for the students after reading the story? Note: Some students may be sensitive about wearing glasses. (Eyes are checked once a year at school; what to do when you get dirt in your eyes; the importance of dark glasses or regular glasses). Add new information that is learned to the charts developed from the research papers presented by the students. Are there any questions we haven't answered?

Center for Insect Science Education Outreach The University of Arizona Contact:CISEO http://insected.arizona.edu All contents copyright © 1997. All rights reserved.