Week 10 -- Social Insects

This week we will study social insects. Instruction will be a mixture of videos, direct lecture, guest lectures, and hands-on observations. When not working on the assignments listed below, continue working on your collection and research topic.

Specific assignments:

Assignment 1: Introduction to Social Insects - mini-lecture. Take notes and participate in class discussion.

Click here to view Power Point version of the lecture.

Assignment 2: Watch video on Fire Ants. Note how the ants reflect the behavior of a social insect. Take notes. Be prepared to write a simple summary of what you observed in the video. You can use your notes when you write your summary.

Assignment 3: Write a summary of the aspects insect social behavior portrayed by the fire ant colonies you watched in he video.

Use an essay format for the summary (introduction, body, conclusion) and follow these four steps:

• type a rough draft. Don't spend a lot of time on it. Get down the main ideas.
• print a hard copy of the rough draft and give it to someone to edit.
• type a final draft incorporating as many as the editorial suggestion as necessary.
• submit a hard copy of the final document with your edited rough draft attached.

Your summary will be graded using the following rubric: