Physical Science and Engineering
Lyon County Naturalist, Emily Ostrander visited Mrs. Snyders’ 2nd grade classroom on Friday, January 22nd. One of Emily’s goals this year has been to teach more lessons that align with the current Next Generation Science Standards, NGSS for short. All the science lessons this year have been very engaging for the students. For our lesson this week, Emily brought in a tarantula for the kids to see and touch. Not everyone wanted to touch the tarantula! We found out that a tarantula costs about $19 at the pet store, and they require very little care. Emily feeds crickets to the tarantula about once a month. We learned that tarantulas would rather run away and flick their hairs at humans than bite them. Humans are much bigger, and they don’t want to waste their venom on us. Most people who have been bitten by a tarantula compare it to that of a bee or wasp sting.
As tarantulas grow, they shed their skin. This is known as “molting”. Emily brought in a shed from her tarantula. The shed looked almost like the real tarantula! Check out the picture of the shed in the plastic container.
After the kids checked out the tarantula, they were tasked with creating their own spider webs. The goal was to design a web that could hold the most rocks and beans. It was interesting to see the designs the kids came up with for their webs. We set a record in our web design. One student was able to engineer a web that held eleven rocks. The previous record was ten. The kids really enjoyed this lesson, and we can’t wait to see what next month brings.