The amazing army ant of the Amazon rain forest

In this lesson, students will compare and contrast fire ants and army ants. In doing so, students will learn about the parts and life cycle of an ant. This lesson also serves as an introduction to learning about the Amazon rain forest.

A lesson plan for grade 2 Science

By Linda Hayes

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Related pages

• Horizons Unlimited: This wonderful education center and museum provides hands-on programs for students in the areas of history and the physical and biological sciences.
• Bullington Center: Students will receive hands-on education on plants and the environment at this 12-acre public garden.
• Slipsliding poetry: Students will work with a partner to write an original piece of poetry to express information learned about the rain forest and an animal that lives in that habitat. Students will share their poems by creating a multimedia slide show.

Related topics

• Learn more about ants, insects, rain forests, and science.

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Learning outcomes

Students will:

• be able to identify the life cycle of a fire ant and an army ant.
• be able to name, locate, and identify the parts of an ant and compare the fire ant of North Carolina to the army ant of the Amazon rain forest.
• demonstrate an understanding that the army ant helps maintain the ecological balance of the rain forest, is both predator and prey, and can be both harmful and helpful.

Teacher planning

You may wish to collaborate with your school’s librarian to find additional resources for this lesson.

Time required

Three or four 40-minute class periods

Materials needed

• Chart paper
• Sticky notes of different colors
• Notebook paper
• Pencils
• Atlas — one per student
• The Life and Times of the Ant by Charles Micucci
• Army Ant Parade by April Pulley Sayre
• Army Ants by Sandra Markle (optional)
• Books about the rain forest, such as A Rain Forest Habitat (optional)

Technology resources

Interactive white board or a computer connected to a multimedia projector

Pre-activities

On the day before you begin this lesson, have the students observe what living things they see on the school playground or grass/dirt area. Remind the students to observe and not touch. They could even write down and illustrate what they saw.

Activities

1. Begin by creating a KWL chart about ants on a large piece of chart paper.
2. Distribute sticky notes for students to write down one thought about what they think they know about ants. This gives the teacher the opportunity to assess the students’ prior knowledge. Each student should read their thought as they place it on the chart. Discuss this information with the students.
3. Because North Carolina is a state that has fire ants, this will most likely be added to the chart. Black carpenter ants are native to North Carolina and will also most likely be placed on the chart.
4. Facilitate a discussion about fire ants. Possible discussion points:
   1. Ask if anyone has ever been bitten by a fire ant, and if so, what it feels like.
   2. Ask if anyone has heard of the North Carolina hockey team the Fire Antz. You could discuss the name of this team and how it compares to other hockey team names, such as the Hurricanes, Sharks, Panthers, Cottonmouths.
5. After the chart is completed, ask the students to take a piece of paper and write at least three thoughts about what they want to learn about ants.
6. Distribute a different color sticky note, and ask students one at a time which question they would like to place on the “What I Want to Learn” section of the chart. It is important to review the students’ questions so you don’t end up with twenty copies of the same question.
7. Read the story The Life and Times of the Ant to the class. Have the students write down facts on a piece of paper.
8. At the end of the story, review the facts that the students have written down, and determine if any of them help answer some of the questions listed on the KWL chart.
9. Write down what they have learned on the chart, as well.
10. Using pictures from books, websites, or other resources, discuss the metamorphosis of the fire ant (eggs, larva, pupa, adult). You can relate this to other insects about which they may have already learned.
11. You may wish to give each student a copy of this life cycle diagram with the stages covered up. The students could then label each stage themselves.
12. Show students a diagram of an ant’s body. You may then wish to distribute copies of an unlabeled diagram and have them label the parts.
13. Inform students that they will now be introduced to an ant that lives in the rain forests of Central and South America.
14. Read Army Ant Parade. Promote discussion about the army ants in the book by asking what the students saw and how the habitat of the fire compares to that of army ants.
15. This book introduces the term canopy and tells about the other animals in the forest (e.g., antbirds, frogs, snakes, tarantulas, lizards, leaf cutter ants) that are listening to the army ants on the move. Show the students the location of the rain forest in Panama and in South America on a map and have the students use their atlas to locate these locations.
16. Facilitate a discussion about the different layers of the rain forest: emergent, canopy, understory, and forest floor. This will lead to more instruction and research on the rain forest. The author also provides additional text at the back of the book for a more detailed explanation.
17. Have students draw and label the parts of an ant on a large index card.
18. Next, have the students write an informational text about the army ant with an illustration of both the rain forest habitat and the army ant. The students should identify four layers of the rain forest. This could serve as a starting point for a student-written book about the Amazon rain forest and its animals. In future lessons the students could learn about other animals of the rain forest and add similar pages to their books. The pages could be stapled together or holes could be punched along the left side and yarn could hold the pages together.

Assessment

You may use this rubric to assess the students’ drawings of ants. You may also assess the students’ informational writing for accuracy, completion, and quality.

Critical vocabulary

abdomen

the hindmost of the three body regions of a fire ant (head, thorax, abdomen)

brood

the young of certain animals; in fire ants, the eggs, larvae and pupae make up the brood

colony

a group of the same kinds of animals, plants or other organisms living or growing together

forage

to look for food

larva

a young, wingless, often worm-like form that hatches from the egg of many insects

mandible

a jaw; an insect has two mandibles which work together with other structures to form the insect’s mouth parts

metamorphosis

change in developmental stages (e.g., larva to pupa to adult)

predator

an animal that lives by hunting and eating other animals

prey

an animal that is hunted by another animal for food

pupa

the intermediate development stage between larva and adult

rain forests

very dense, warm, wet forests

thorax

the body region behind the head where the legs and wings are located

Supplemental information

Army Ants of the Amazon slideshow

This slideshow provides background information on army ants. You may choose to show it to your students.

Video of fire ants making a living life boat

This site shows a short video of how the fire ants attach themselves to each other when rain envelopes their nests.

Enchanted Learning

This site has ant worksheets that students can label.

Carpenter ants

This site from North Carolina State University offers information about carpenter ants.

Comments

This lesson plan was created in an Amazon rain forest workshop held in Raleigh, NC. This workshop was funded by North Carolina State University for the for the purpose of giving teachers the time and resources to create lesson plans that will communicate the importance of the Amazon rain forest to the global community, including North Carolina teachers and students.