Invasive ants for teachers and young people
Lesson plans for invasive ants : SPREP invasive species school resource toolkit : Other resources for teachers and young people
Lesson plans for invasive ants
As well as the lesson plans we have a number of fun activities that can be incorporated into the lesson plans. Activities include a crossword, wordsearch, and ants & ladders (based on the snakes and ladders concept).
PIAT lesson plan for invasive ants
The PIAT lesson plan is intended to introduce the worst 5 invasive ants in the Pacific to children between the ages of 7 and 11 years.
The lesson introduces the children to the idea of invasive ants, the sorts of problems they cause, where they come from, how they travel and how they enter a country, and engages the students in biosecurity.
Connected lesson plan
Allan Burne of Pacific Biosecurity wrote an article on the invasion of yellow crazy ants in Tokelau for Lift Education's Connected Series (Connected 2016 Level 2 – Show and Tell) for the New Zealand Ministry of Education. Invasion of the Yellow Crazies is available as a pdf (download 6 MB), a PowerPoint (download 6 MB), and online as a Google Slide presentation. The article also has a lesson plan based around it that includes activities involving research, numeracy and statistics as well as ant biology. |
Invasion of the Yellow Crazies © Crown (New Zealand Ministry of Education) |
SPREP invasive species school resource toolkit
A message from Dave Moverley, Invasive Species Adviser at SPREP, on the launch of the school resource toolkit:
"Talofa! |
Dave Moverley, Invasive species adviser at SPREP |
The toolkit includes four factsheets on invasive species for school children. This factsheet provides information on little fire ants. | ||
Four videos and radio slots of the little fire ants are available in English and French language versions. Two minute video on little fire ants, YouTube video (© SPREP) |
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Thirty second video on little fire ants YouTube video (© SPREP) |
The full toolkit can be downloaded from dropbox (you don't need a dropbox account).
Other resources for teachers and young people
Invasion of the yellow crazy ants YouTube video (© Minute Earth / Wet Tropics Management Authority) |
Kids can stop invasive species. In this video a seven-year old girl found fire ants in the school playgound, YouTube video (© Biosecurity Queensland) |
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The "pawder patrol" dogs help protect from invasive species, YouTube video (© New Zealand MPI) |
Pest world for kids has a section on ants. The StoptheAnt website has resources for educators and volunteers on little fire ant surveys. Hō‘ike o Haleakalā curriculum has a unit on fire ants (both little fire ants and red imported fire ants), a unit on native versus invasive species, and a whole module on invasive species. |