5/2-4 Jackson School GATE Site
Entomology Field Outting- Canal Bank, Fallow Agricultural Land and
Guest Speaker- "The Orkin Man"

Our excursions to sites impacted by agricultural land use prompted discussion of the interrelationship between man and environment and perhaps more profoundly, the impact of man on habitat over time. The longterm residual effects of insecticides and herbicides have likely altered the types of insects that make their homes in the fields and canal banks as each habitat functions in the presence of chemicals. For example, growing only on the fallow agricultural ground was an abundance of one single type of flowering plant and on that ground one single type of moth caterpillar.
The role "time" plays, relative to biodiversity, can not be underestimated as it determines the course of every other variable. While it is easy to observe physical changes and patterns in a biodiverse framework, the abstract nature of time may be overlooked.

You may recall that Orkin funded, at least in part, the insect exhibit at the Smithsonian so, I asked the Orkin Man to stop by to share his expertise. By the time he got to Black Widow Spiders, he had inadvertently scared the bijeebers out of my students. Fortunately, his visit was subsquent to our field trip.

BTW, has anyone out there read Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv ?

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