Second grade biologists are finishing the year with a study of invertebrates. They will investigate live specimens in the remainder of their labs. In this lab, we studied pill bugs, also known as roly-polies, potato bugs, and isopods.

Although they have the word bug in their name, pill bugs or roly-polies aren’t bugs at all. They are crustaceans, and therefore related to shrimp, crabs, and lobsters. Pill bugs are decomposers, the last stop on the food chain, and are often referred to as nature’s recyclers. Although they are terrestrial, they breathe through gills. Other vocabulary included molt, isopod, defense mechanism, exoskeleton, and habitat.

What will the roly-poly do when it reaches the end of the stick-turn around, back up, climb under the stick, or jump off?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click here to learn more about a pillbug’s habitat. So fun to use my doc camera, so we could observe the isopods in their home. Notice that all the isopods are not the same color.

STEM challenge:  Build a maze for your isopods.

We took a quiz to assess what we knew about pillbugs before lab and what we’d learned by the end of  lab.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also observed our millipedes-Jilly and Billy. While millipedes are fairly safe to handle, centipedes are not. We learned the difference between the two. Click here to learn more.