Create an ‘Air Bee n Bee’: STEM Activity
If you want to know if the world is in trouble, just look at the bees.
Bees are disappearing from their hives around the world, and scientists say they don’t know why. They call it ‘Colony Collapse Disorder.’ And because bees pollinate so many plants that provide food for humans – from apples to almonds – the disappearance of bees could have a big impact on our food supply.
So what can we do to help the bees?
One way is to create a bee habitat in your own backyard.
By providing a place for bees to nest and forage, you can make a big difference in their survival.
What is Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)?
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is a phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or colony abruptly disappear.
While the cause of CCD is still unknown, many theories have been put forth, including mites, pesticides, and habitat loss.
The latter is of particular interest to us, as creating bee habitats can help mitigate the effects of habitat loss and help prevent CCD.
Tips for attracting bees to your garden
There are many things you can do to attract bees to your garden and keep them away from harmful pesticides. Some tips are:
– Avoid using pesticides in your garden, as they can be harmful to bees. If you must use them, try to apply them in the evening when bees are less active.
– Provide a water source for the bees by installing a bee bath or creating a shallow dish of water.
– Place a bee house in your garden to provide a place for the bees to nest.
Ways you can help the bees even more, such as planting flowers that attract pollinators or buying organic food when possible
Bees are important for the environment, and there are many ways to help them out.
You can plant flowers that attract pollinators.
– Plant a variety of flowers to provide a diverse food source for the bees. Some bee favourites include lavender, daisy, aster, and sunflower.
You could also buy organic food when possible.
Both of these things help bees stay healthy and do their important work.
One great way to help bees is by creating a bee habitat in your own backyard.
And we’ve found an activity to help you do just that!
A STEM activity to do at home
The team at Primary + STEM have found a fun activity to help children learn about bees. The activity is called ‘Bee Habitat‘ and it teaches children about the diversity of Australia’s native bees by exploring bee habitats in their backyard.
The activity forms part of the Primary + STEM team’s curated selection of Teaching Resources which have been mapped to the Victorian education curriculum.
We encourage you to explore all the activities on the Primary + STEM website, including a beautiful collection of stories about women who’ve transformed their childhood passion for STEM into STEM careers. They make great bedtime stories!
The Bee Habitat activity is a hands-on project that can be done right at home with the help of some simple materials.
On the Bee Habitat lesson page, you’ll find links to lots of bee-related activities.
We especially liked the one called ‘Build a Bee Hotel‘, which is humorously referred to on the activity website as an ‘air bee n bee’.
The Build a Bee Hotel activity guides children through multiple steps, including:
- Identifying the best location to set up their bee hotel
- Thinking about natural materials to use when constructing the bee hotel
- Attracting ‘bee customers’
Share your activity experience
If you try this out at home, we’d love to see pictures of what you came up with! You can send images through to primaryandstem@gmail.com along with any advice for other aspiring bee hotel developers so we can share them on the website.
Information for teachers
The ‘Bee habitat’ activity introduces students to the diversity of Australia’s native bees by exploring bee habitats at their school. Students explore bees’ needs and adaptions and apply mathematical concepts to visualise bee size variations, to design and build appropriate bee hotels and to map bee habitat. Additional resources are provided to extend this activity further (e.g. making a bee bath).
This activity has been mapped to the Victorian curriculum:
- Learning area: F-10: Design and Technologies
- Curriculum code: Design & Technologies > Levels 5 and 6 > Technologies and Society > VCDSTS033
- Grade Level: 5, 6
Suggested additional resources
Video about bees in Australia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_OQnIwQMuQ
The Bee Movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389790/
Image credit
Photo by Thijs van der Weide from Pexels