Last year our Student Teacher began a study of bees with some of our students.  They used a multi-disciplinary approach using some reading, making a 3D model of the external parts of the bee, and writing a Haiku about bees.  This year we did a short unit to finish up our look at bees by first thinking, as a group, how WE are like BEES.   This included that, like bees, we have a preference for right or left handedness and they have a preference for their right or left antennae.  As we moved on to other similarities, we began to look at the internal organs and processes of these teeny tiny creatures who play such an important role in our natural world. They have hormones and enzymes just like us, that perform many of the same functions. AND we both produce wax.  

We spent approximately six weeks drawing and labeling the internal organs of the bee looking at glands that produce hormones and hormones that produce enzymes.  All of it fits into their tiny bodies. We watched a number of videos  and we had the opportunity to taste pollen and bee bread (a mixture of raw honey and pollen). 

Students were given informational reading to go along with their drawings. Usually this reading was done in pairs or with a teacher. In the end, they were  asked to produce a very short blurb about one organ.  One goal was to introduce terms to some of the students such as hormone, enzyme, gland, genes, pheromones, etc. so that as they move on in biology, they will have become somewhat familiar with their meanings and functions—i.e. like us, hormones effect their aging and tasks. Another goal was to help students replace some of their fear of bees with a wonder at their construction and their amazing ability to communicate distance, direction and quantity to their hive mates.