Child looking at a butterfly preserved in a resin block

Bugs: life cycles and interactions

What
Museum Staff-led
When
Terms 1 to 4, Monday to Friday
10am, 11am, 12 noon, 1:30pm
Duration
30 minutes
Curriculum links & Accessibility
Year level
Years 3 to 4
Minmum student numbers
Minimum 15 students
Maximum student numbers
Maximum 30 students
Cost
$9 per student + education service fee
Booking information
Bookings 13 11 02

In this curriculum-aligned program, students in Years 3 and 4 explore the features of insects and other bugs, and how they help them survive in and respond to their environment. They discover the important roles bugs play in the environment through their interactions with other living things, and how they change and grow over their life-cycles.

Students will experience

  • Being guided by a museum expert in exploring hands-on objects
  • Investigating prepared bug specimens up close
  • Seeing incredible slow-motion footage of bugs in motion
  • Working in small groups to answer questions, follow interests, generate wonder and awe

Students will learn

  • That scientists use observable characteristics to group living things
  • How to identify the different groups of bugs (arthropods)
  • About the physical features of animals that help them sustain the basic needs of life, such as finding food and protection
  • That different bug groups have different life-cycles including complete and partial metamorphosis.
  • That bugs are the most diverse and numerous of all animals groups
  • How to think like a scientist to ask questions, make observations and test predictions 
  • About the incredibly important role bugs play in our environment, and to humans.

Other key information

  • This interactive 30-minute program is recommended as an introduction for 3-4 groups before visiting the Bugs Alive! exhibition.

Victorian Curriculum links

Biological sciences: Levels 3 and 4

plants and animals have different life cycles; offspring are similar, but not identical, to their parents
VC2S4U02

consumers, producers and decomposers have different roles and interactions within a habitat; food chains can be used to represent feeding relationships
VC2S4U03

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