The students in the Year 3 and 4 Sustainable
Elective have continued their scientific learning
about the importance of honeybees. When you read their informative glossaries, you will see words like, insect, proboscis, antennae, waggle
dance, pollination and worker bee explained in
scientific language.
During their study, students have also enjoyed
cooking their own healthy, tasty foods like
Honey Glazed Carrots. They know that
worker honeybees visit different flowers to
get the nectar that makes different tasting honey.
They have tried Manuka Honey, Rata Honey,
Clover Honey and Mixed Floral Honey. Each
honey had its own special taste.
The students know that honey is delicious but
that the most important thing about honeybees
is that they are the best pollinators of flowers.
Most flowering plants need pollen from another
flower of the same kind to make new seeds.
When the honeybees are sipping nectar, they
collect pollen (male part of the flower) in their
pollen sacks and when they visit another flower
the pollen is dropped on to the flower. When
the flower dies, seeds have been made to start
new plants.
Using the digital microscopes, students saw a
variety of insects up close and flowers.
On the flowers, we could see the pollen and the
female part of the flower. We found out that if
we didn't have honeybees pollinating our
flowers, we would have 70% less food plants
available to eat.
Our caring thinking in this elective was to
decide what we could do to help the honeybees
survive. Our learning showed us that honeybees
don't like inorganic sprays, that in the winter
honeybees can't always find enough flowers to
sip nectar from and that they need water and a
safe home.
We decided to make posters that can let other people
know why honeybees are important and how we can
help them at school and at home.
We will be hanging our posters around our school.
Look out for these brightly coloured and very
informative posters.
