Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: Our island home

20 minutes

Find Out: What is the role of invertebrates in Australia’s ecosystems?

25 minutes

Take Action: Bug Hunt

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions

Students will:

explore the different ways other animals rely on invertebrates
explore the role of Australia’s insectivorous mammals/others in the Australian ecosystem.

Success criteria

Students can:

describe the environmental changes occurring with the loss of Australia’s small marsupials
explain how healthy native insect populations contribute to a healthy Australian food web.

Preparation

Access the Bug Hunt Australia project in iNaturalist. Set up an account for your class to use and familiarise yourself with the project. Read the Teacher Content Information and decide how you will submit your Bug Hunt Australia finds to the iNaturalist project. You will need to choose an outdoor area where students can conduct their bug hunt. To prevent doubling up of observations, we recommend that you use cones or flagging tape to mark out areas for each group of students. Make sure devices are charged and ready to go!

Tune In: Our island home

Step 1

Divide your students into groups of 3-5. Ask them the following question: ‘How has Australia’s island status impacted the animals, plants, and food webs here?’

After 5 minutes, have them share and discuss their answers. The key ideas we are looking to uncover are:

Australia has unique flora and fauna that are not found elsewhere, particularly the high numbers of marsupials
Australia has specialist species that are specifically adapted to Australia’s habitats
Australia is particularly vulnerable to introduced species.

Step 2

Ask your students to name as many species that are unique to Australia as they can. Give them another 5 minutes in their groups to come up with as many species as they can. On the whiteboard, write the following headers:

plants/fungi
mammals (inc. marsupials)
birds
fish
reptiles
amphibians
invertebrates.

Ask a representative of each group to write their ideas on the board under the header where they belong. Each species can only be written once, so if another group beats them to it, they must erase that species from their list.

Learning differentiation: If you have already done a lot of work on Australian species, require students to write specific species names. Otherwise, broad groups such as ‘bandicoots’ and ‘eucalyptus’ are fine.

Step 3

Consider the list with your students, and ask them the following questions:

Which category has the most?
Which category has the least?

Give the students these examples from each category and ask: ‘Where do these animals get their energy from?’ (Hint: all of these animals are insectivorous and have invertebrates as a primary component of their diet).

marsupial: bandicoot
bird: magpie
fish: barramundi
reptile: blue-tongued lizard
amphibian: green tree frog.

Highlight to students that many of our unique mammals, marsupials, fish, birds, reptiles and amphibians rely on invertebrates as their main source of energy. Ask your students:

How many species of invertebrates did they write on their list?
Can they think of any other invertebrates that aren’t on the list?
Aside from being an energy source, what other roles do invertebrates play in our ecosystem?
Given that there are around 300,000 species of invertebrates in Australia, why do you think you know about so few?

Explain that today we will investigate the role invertebrates play in our ecosystems, and not just as a source of energy for the iconic animals.

Find Out: What is the role of invertebrates in Australia’s ecosystems?

Step 1

Share the Visual Explainer with your students. Explain that since colonisation, Australia has lost 39 species of mammals. Ask your students: How do you think these extinctions impacted the ecosystem?

They may suggest:

loss of predators means an overabundance of prey species (invertebrates, reptiles, etc.)
loss of herbivores and small marsupials means less prey species for predators (birds of prey, dingoes, etc).

Step 2

Use the Visual Explainer to explore the case study of the eastern barred bandicoot with your students. Explain to students that the eastern barred bandicoot’s recovery efforts presented a unique opportunity to explore the impact of insectivorous marsupials on the Australian ecosystem. Talk through the case study, exploring how bandicoots were reintroduced to the wild, and how their impact on the ecosystem was measured. Pause and reflect on Australia’s mammal extinction numbers. Explain to your students that 39 extinctions mean we have lost just over 1 in 10 of our native mammals. Return to the question from Step 1 and reconsider the impact of these extinctions on our ecosystems.

Continue through the slides, exploring the different endangered marsupials that rely on invertebrates for survival. Ask your students: ‘How would the recovery of these marsupials be helped by healthy and diverse invertebrate populations?’

Explain that it is not just marsupials who benefit from healthy invertebrate populations. Share some of the additional ways invertebrates support our ecosystems:

Spider holes create homes for reptiles, including grassland earless dragons and pygmy blue tongue lizards.
Termite mounds are nesting sites for goannas.
ative bees can buzz pollinate - vibrate at the right frequency to make flowers release their pollen, something introduced honey bees can’t do.
Ants carry wattle and pea seeds underground, where they germinate.

Step 3

Use the next two slides to consider the impact of invasive invertebrates on endangered marsupial populations. Ask your students: ‘If yellow crazy ants spread across Australia, what would it mean for endangered marsupials?’

Take Action: Contributing data

Step 1

Explain to students that they will be contributing to habitat protection by participating in Bug Hunt Australia. Use the slides to introduce the iNaturalist project, citizen science, and ethical bug hunting protocols to your students. Explain that today they will be taking photographs, which will be uploaded to iNaturalist as observations to help build our data set on invertebrate presence in Australia.

Step 2

Take your students outside to conduct their observations. Make sure students:

have their devices, and are sun safe
understand where they are conducting the Bug Hunt and what the boundaries are
know how much time they will be spending on their survey
remember to fill the frame with their photographs, and take photos of the same bug from different angles
follow the Bug Hunt guidelines and be respectful.

Learning extension: Practice digital literacy skills with your students by submitting the observations. Demonstrate how to upload an observation, and then let the students upload their observations in groups. They will need to locate all of the images attached to a particular observation, upload them to iNaturalist, select options about the observation that apply, and submit the observation.

Reflection

On your return to the classroom, discuss the following questions with your students:

What about your assessment was surprising or unexpected?
How easy was it to distinguish between introduced and native invertebrates?
Did they notice any other animals around that might need invertebrates in that environment, such as magpies, rainbow bee-eaters, etc.?
What do they think needs to happen next to support our whole ecosystem's health?

Bug Hunt: Bugs Building Webs

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