Bee Pollination Fun

On Thursday August 18^th, the lesson was based on Bee Pollination! Our entire world full of lush vegetation is due to bees and their ability to pollinate plants.  The loss of bees over the past few years has the potential to seriously hurt our environment. About one-third of the human diet is derived from insect-pollinated plants, and honey bees are responsible for 80 percent of this pollination. Honey bees are responsible for pollinating a variety of fruits, vegetables, legumes, and nuts such as almonds. The loss of bees in other parts of the world has forced scientists and farmers to actually go out and pollinate the bees themselves. Pollinators are a very important part of our ecosystem and must remain. 

  

The kids in my class have an age range between 1^st and 2^nd grade and are perfectly set up to learn about the importance of our worldly pollinators. We began our lesson with a video on bee pollination and continued on to where we made our bees. The kids had the option to decorate their bee abdomens and glue the head and wings onto popsicle sticks. I’ve found that this group of kids really loves building and creating. Every chance they get, they take time to express their creativity through art. The bee creation was quick but helped the kids to learn about the various body parts to a bee.

Finishing with the flower and pollen, the kids were given coffee filters to color with markers. They had done this similar project one day prior and LOVED IT! My group really loves to make “authentic” looking flowers and took their time to make very beautiful works of art. I was able to explain that in the center of each flower where the bees come and pollinate. The kids took their time decorating the petals of their flowers and in the center we glued on a little bit of gold sparkle dust. This was to represent the very important pollen. This concluded their bee pollination lesson.

Thanks for reading !

-- Mackenzie