Lily’s Ladybugs by Ms. Gullstrand

Lily was learning about the Scientific Method in her 4th grade science class.

Science was not her favorite subject, but she was a VERY curious person.

Lily learned that the first step in the Scientific Method was to ask a question.

Lily’s teacher asked her to think of something that she would like to investigate.

What does it mean to investigate something? Tell me about a time that you investigated something.

Lily had noticed that there were a lot of red lady bugs with black spots on her mother’s rose bush at home.

Lily thought that the ladybugs were eating the roses and she thought that her mom would be very upset about that! Maybe this would be a good thing to investigate!

When she got home from school that day, Lily told her mom that the ladybugs were eating her roses.

Lily’s mom laughed gently and she suggested that Lily go outside to observe the lady bugs with a magnifying glass.

What are some other words or phrases to describe an observation?

Lily was surprised to see that the ladybugs were not eating the roses. During her investigation, she discovered that the ladybugs were eating the tiny green bugs that were clinging to the stems of the roses.

What does clinging mean in this story? Context clue: look at the words that come before and after clinging!

When Lily went back into her house, she told her mom about her observations.

The second step in the Scientific Method is research. Lily’s mom helped her to find more information about ladybugs

Lily found out several interesting things about ladybugs:

The scientific name for ladybug is Coccinellidae.

Ladybugs are a type of beetle. They are called Lady Beetles or Lady Birds in England!

Ladybugs live for 2-3 years .

Ladybugs are .3 to .4 inches long.

Size relative to a paper clip:

(Ladybug, 2013)

Lily learned about the life cycle of the ladybug:

Ladybugs are omnivores. This means that they eat plants and animals.

What are some other types of omnivores?

Gardeners love to have ladybugs around. Most types of ladybugs eat small bugs that are harmful to plants and crops.

There are only two types of ladybugs that eat plants. The Mexican bean beetle and the squash beetle are destructive path that prey upon crops.

Mexican Bean Beetle

Ladybugs do not taste very good. Ladybugs secrete a fluid from their leg joints which gives them a foul taste. Their bright color and bad taste keep them safe from predators like birds (Ladybug, 2013).

Name some other prey-predator relationships.

It was time for Lily to design an experiment and formulate a hypothesis about ladybugs.

What experiments would you conduct to find out more about ladybugs?

Lily could not think of a good experiment for ladybugs. She wondered if the ladybugs would leave if her mom’s rose bush was cut down.

Lily knew that her mom would never agree to that!

Lily continued her ladybug research. She learned that in 1999, four ladybugs were sent into space on a NASA space shuttle.

nasa.gov

Ladybugs and their main food, aphids, were sent to a zero-gravity environment to study how to aphids could get away from the ladybugs without being able to jump using gravity.

The third step in the Scientific Method is to form a hypothesis. A hypothesis is an educated guess about what will happen in an experiment.

The lead scientist in this study, astronaut Eileen Collins, hypothesized that more aphids would be eaten in space than on Earth.

(Eileen Collins, 2013)

What is your hypothesis for this experiment?

The fourth step in the Scientific Method is to conduct an experiment.

The astronauts took a small container with four ladybugs, leaves, and aphids onto the Space Shuttle.

The scientists knew that on Earth, ladybugs will climb up a plant stalk to capture aphids, and the aphids will use gravity to assist them to fall off of the leaf to escape from the ladybug.

The scientists wondered how these defense mechanisms would work in the absence of gravity. They also wondered what would happen to the relationship between predator and prey.

What are some other examples of defense mechanisms in prey/predator relationships?

The fifth step in the Scientific Method is the analysis of data generated from the experiment.

There were no aphids left at the end of the experiment, but all of the ladybugs survived (Enchanted Learning, 2013).

The final step in the Scientific Method is to decide whether or not the investigator’s hypothesis is true or false.

Dr. Collins was correct! Her hypothesis statement was TRUE!

Ladybugs do very well in space!

Resources

Eileen Collins. (2013). Retrieved from National Aeronautics and Space Administration: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/collins.html

Enchanted Learning. (2013). Retrieved from Ladybugs: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/insects/Ladybug.shtml

Ladybug. (2013). Retrieved from National Geographic: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/ladybug/