By Sara LaJeunesse
University of Georgia
Wasp wrangling may sound like risky business, especially for
children. Actually, it’s quite safe. So much so that a University
of Georgia professor is using wasps as a way to teach science.
Collaborating with UGA science education colleagues and about 100
Georgia middle school science teachers, UGA entomologist Bob
Matthews has developed 20 classroom activities using “WOWBugs,”
wasps so tiny that their stingers can’t penetrate human
skin.
“The first lesson is handling the organism,” Matthews
said.
Bug-racing 101
Students practice sweeping the bugs across their desks with paint
brushes. In a second lesson, called WOWBug Racetrack, they learn
how to collect and analyze data. They record the time it takes
for the flightless wasps to scuttle from one end of the track to
the other.
Matthews and his colleagues have studied these wasps’ biology for
more than 30 years. He first recognized their potential as
teaching tools when he was in graduate school.
“They literally found me,” he said of the discovery that WOWBugs
had infested his thesis experiment involving a bee.
From this fiasco, Matthews learned of the wasps’ hardiness and
short (24-day) life cycle, which makes them convenient to study.
He named thm WOWBugs because of the enthusiasm they generated.
Ant-size non-stinging wasps
“They were originally called fast wasps in allusion to their
rapid life cycle,” he said. “Unfortunately, the name didn’t have
good marketing appeal, as it conjured up a quick sting!”
Not much bigger than fleas, the parasitic wasps (Melittobia
digitata) prey on many solitary bees and wasps, including mud
daubers — large, black wasps that make mud nests.
The tiny bugs have some fascinating characteristics. The male,
for example “is most un-insect looking,” Matthews said. “He’s
blind, his antler-like antennae are grotesquely modified and he’s
got little stumps for wings.”
This compromised chap’s pheromones let him do his procreative
duty, however, as long as he can steer clear of other males who
will try to kill him.
In any case, teachers are enthusiastic about using WOWBugs.
Brenda Hunt of North Habersham Middle School in Clarkesville,
Ga., teaches her students how to collect wild specimens by
scraping mud dauber nests off the sides of buildings.
“I also tell them,” she said, “not to use their mothers’ spatulas
without permission.”
For college students, too
WOWBug use at the college level is a bit more involved. Matthews
and postdoctoral associate Jorge M. Gonzalez created four modules
for freshman biology classes. These modules help students study:
* Courtship and aggression behaviors.
* Natural selection and heritability.
* Ecological interactions, including competition.
* Development and polymorphism (having more than one form —
short-winged versus long-winged, in the case of females).
One of Matthews’ animal behavior classes was taught through the
UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. The
students designed WOWBug experiments for their end-of-term
projects.
Vanessa Reynolds, a recent UGA graduate, examined whether female
wasps would choose to lay eggs on a host that had already been
parasitized or go for a “clean” host instead. Although her study
yielded inconclusive results, Reynolds was impressed with the
class.
“It influenced my goals,” she said. “Now I’d love to go to
graduate school in animal behavior and incorporate that subject
into a focus in education.”
Stories like this make Matthews proud. And Reynolds is only one
among the many students of all ages who have been wowed by this
bug.
“Fifteen years ago, if you had said WOWBugs were going to go
national or international in the next decade or so, I would have
said you’re crazy,” Matthews said. “But it’s becoming another
model organism for classroom use at all levels.”
For more information, visit the Web site www.wowbugs.com or email
Matthews at rmatthew@uga.edu.
