Who's the Boss of the Anthill?
LIFE SCIENCES
Get curious
10 min
Observing (10 min)
Go outside and observe what ants look like and how they behave. Try to find their anthill and see what does it look like.
Before the class, walk around the area where an anthill is located and which you have chosen for the lesson.
Get going
5 min
Talk (5 min)
Talk about how an anthill functions: what are the roles of particular ants.
The students already know what an anthill looks like. Now ask them, how they think: Can an ant live independently outside of the anthill? Who is the most important ant in an anthill? What does she look like? What does she do? What other ants live in the anthill? What do the workers do? What do the soldiers do?
12 min
Role-playing (12 min)
The students act out the role of ants from different castes, pretending to be the queen, the workers and soldiers in different situations that ants encounter.
3 min
Summary (3 min)
Exchange impressions and sum up the anthill game.
You can ask the students: What can we compare the life/functioning of an anthill with?
How many different groups (castes) of ants are there in an anthill and what do they do?
If one ant is doing something wrong, or is working poorly, is everything still OK?
Get practicing
Observing
The students learn how other animals live in a group.
They can observe animals living in a group, e.g. in a meadow, a park or a forest. Alternately, they can use the internet or watch a wildlife film. They should choose one species of animal living in a group and prepare to give a short talk about how these animals’ lifes are made easier by forming groups.
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