Bugscope The House Fly

1. Bugscope The House Fly Kitty Damanskis EDUC 110

2. Applying Bugscope • Bugscope can be applied to other curricular areas. For example, you could incorporate this into creative writing. Students could write about what they think they are seeing in a picture. Then they could write a story about what they see. • Bugscope can also be applied to a history lesson. They could map the different bugs/insects and research where they live and why they live there.

3. Authenticity of Technologies • Using the technologies was very authentic. We used microscopes to examine the insects through different “eyes.” • We learned to think about an obvious activity in a different way. This helped us to open our minds in order to think about all the different ways we can use the simple activity of looking at something through a microscope. • We used the microscopes to enhance our learning and we actually got something out of it.

4. Literature Sources • Spider and the Fly • Diary of a Spider • Insects and Spiders

5. NSES • Content Standards: K-4 • Science as Inquiry • Content standard A: • Students should develop: • Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry • Understanding about scientific inquiry • Students should develop inquiry skills. As students focus on the processes of doing investigations, they develop the ability to ask scientific questions, investigate aspects of the world around them, and use their observations to construct reasonable explanations for the questions posed. Guided by teachers, students continually develop their science knowledge. Students should also learn through the inquiry process how to communicate about their own and their peers' investigations and explanations

6. NSES and Bugscope • In the Bugscope activity, students learned to investigate the bodies of insects and learned to ask important questions to the experts. • They learned to investigate the different ways to look at an insect. Then by expanding the activity, they learned to communicate their ideas about what they were possibly looking at by doing a creative writing activity or by mapping where they live.

7. Where are they found? • House flies are the most common flies. • They are found in homes and restaurants. • They are also found in other structures where man and his domestic animals live.

8. What is their life cycle? • House flies go through four stages of development. • Egg • Larva • Pupa • Adult • The entire life cycle can be completed in 7-10 days under ideal conditions. Adult females can lay 350-900 in 5 or 6 different batches. The eggs hatch in 6 to 24 hours. • In wet breeding areas, full grown larvae climb to the surface or sides of the breeding media before pupating.. • The pupal stage lasts 3-6 days. The adult female is ready to lay eggs 2 2 days after emergence and continues to lay eggs for about one month.

9. How long does it live? • Adult flies live from 30-60 days during warmer months. • In Northern areas, some adults may survive indoors for several months. • It appears that flies continue to breed all year in low numbers in heated buildings such as dirty restaurants or incinerator rooms. In the spring these flies disperse to other buildings and increase in numbers rapidly.

10. How do they mate? • Adult flies lay eggs in horse, cow, pig, dog, poultry and human manure, garbage or decaying meat. • They can readily breed in fresh and wet incinerated garbage but not in scattered, dry garbage. • They may also breed in wet flour and soybean meal around industrial plants. As many as 868 fly pupa can develop from 1 ounce of manure.

11. What do they eat? • House flies feed on a wide range of organic matter including feces and many types of liquids. • They feed on kitchen garbage, chicken and cattle manure, and at sanitary landfills that are not compacted daily.

12. References • http://www.ivyhall.district96.k12.il.us/4th/kkhp/1insects/fly.html • http://ipm.ncsu.edu/AG369/notes/house_fly.html • http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/LM-10-10.pdf