Ever Eat an insect?  Well, one group of students recently did so, almost. Students studying insects and their exoskeletons led me to a new activity. Make an insect!

The exoskeleton of an insect is remarkable. It has many layers of cells designed to shape, protect and grow new layers when molting time comes.

We started our skeleton with a layer of wax paper to represent the inner membrane. Then laid down a layer of M&M’s as the epidermis layer (this made it both crunchy and uniform like the layer should be.

Next came a slice of bread followed by a slice of toast. These represented the protein layers of the cuticle. A layer of peanut butter on top of the toast was the fat layer. A fruit roll up made the waxy layer that keeps an insect from drying out and finally a cracker on top finished the hard outermost layer. Of course insects sometimes have spikes and strange surface textures which would be a feature of this final top layer.

So, did they learn anything? They sure liked eating our creation. And hopefully they took home new knowledge that an insect might be more complex than it seems.

Video of the “wolves” can be seen at naturalistnotebook.com