Insect Discovery Classroom Visits

Meet an Entomologist

Classroom visits are a way to bring science to the classroom and introduce your students to a university scientist.  A University of Arizona graduate student in Entomology and Insect Science will come to your classroom with live and pinned insects.  The entomologist will engage your students through three hands-on activities that explore insect diversity.

Classroom Visit Policies

  • Visits are available from mid-August through May each year.
  • All classroom visits are free of charge.
  • Visits involve hands-on activities designed for a regular classroom of no more than 30 students.Therefore, please do not combine classes for the visit unless they have less than 15 students.We are happy to visit each class separately.
  • Each classroom visit lasts about 60 minutes, although we can shorten the time.
  • The activities are designed for elementary school students, but we can adapt the activities to be engaging for pre-school students or middle school students.
  • To provide equal educational experiences, we prefer to visit all classes in a particular grade at each school. Please try to coordinate with other teachers when scheduling visits.
  • To schedule visits, please contact Kathleen Walker at krwalker@cals.arizona.edu. 

Available Activities

kids playing with insects in lab

What is an Insect?

Insects have a special place in the world. Many close relatives of insects are all grouped together as ‘bugs’. We begin by letting the students observe and touch Bob the hissing cockroach and his relation. Students identify what features make them insects. Students then compare these insects to some related non-insect animals - Millie, Mr. Wiggles, and our other native millipedes.

kids looking at pinned insects

Insect Diversity

The Sonoran desert is home to many beautiful and strange insects. Students explore the local insect diversity through pinned collections from the University of Arizona Insect Museum.

child drawing an insect

Diversity of Individual Insects

Who knew that every ladybug is unique! Some ladybugs (lady beetles, actually) have 10 spots, some have 12, and some have none at all. Students discover this difference for themselves while strengthening their observational skills. Each student makes scientific drawing of his or her own ladybug. Some students even get to release their ladybugs into the school garden at the end of the lesson.