Our Grade Four Class Blog The Case of the Curious Classroom 

Are you teaching Grade Seven Science?   Well if you are, one of the experiments for, “Interactions and Ecosystems,” is testing the habitat preferred by mealworms.  I was discussing the experiment in the staffroom, well . . . more my dislike for mealworms when @AlexandraPletch a student teacher at our school recommended,  “Superworms.”  She remembered using the Superworms in High School Science to test the habitat they preferred. Her suggestion was fantastic!  Superworms were more active than mealworms and the experiment turned out great!

My students tested whether Superworms preferred:

wet or dry?

warm or cold?

light or dark?

oatmeal or bran?

Students used four petri dishes and divided each petri dish up to test the conditions preferred by the Super Worms.  Students used five Superworms in each petri dish to test each condition preferred.

Here are couple of suggestions that I learned after completing the experiment since this is the first year I am teaching Science 7:

For wet or dry @nishiteacher suggested using a wax crayon to ensure water didn’t travel to the dry side.  This worked well!  Also, make sure your lamps don’t get too hot and use a large ice pack when testing warm or cold.  When testing light or dark, use the petri dish to trace the paper and then place half of each colour into the same petri dish.  Tongs to pick up the Superworms worked well and wear gloves. Be sure to keep the lids on the petri dish on, as Superworms can crawl out!  Hmm . . . not great for a teacher that didn’t want to use mealworms and decided to use active Superworms!  

My students learned that Superworms prefer dry, warm, and dark conditions.  Also, they preferred bran over the oatmeal, but did eat the oatmeal when they ran out of bran to eat.   Students learned that Superworms are scavengers!

It was great to hear the students exclaim, “The experiment worked well and we enjoyed the experiment today.”  Students were engaged and learned key concepts from the chapter!

Here’s a site for more information on Superworms: http://bit.ly/18ZiMxl