‘WoW’ Project – Insects have Compound Eyes

1. Overview

In Term 3, the Kindergarten 1 children at MOE Kindergarten @ First Toa Payoh were introduced to the theme of “Insects”. They learned about insects and the way insects see the world. In line with the iTeach principle of “Children as constructors of knowledge”, where children act on their innate desire to explore by asking and searching for answers to the questions they have, the teacher supported and guided the children’s sense of wonder and curiosity through their Term 3 ‘Weeks of Wonder (WoW)’ project to find out the answer to the question they all seemed to be curious about, “How does the compound eyes of insects work?”.

2. Objectives

Through this ‘WoW’ project, children were given opportunities to:

• Find out how the compound eyes of insects work

• Use a variety of textures and materials to explore how vision differs in insects and humans

3. Phases of the ‘WoW’ Project

The ‘WoW’ Project took place over three phases – I Wonder, I Find Out, and I Know.

In the ‘I Wonder’ phase, children wonder what they would like to find out, identify the topic of investigation, and share what they already know about the topic.

Based on children’s interest in finding out more about insects, the teacher facilitated a discussion to find out what the children wanted to know and how they would find out more about insects. The children had varied questions about insects, the teacher helped them to narrow their topic of investigation down by having the children vote for the body part of the insect they most wanted to investigate. The voting process showed that most of the children in the class were interested to investigate about compound eyes of the insects as their topic for ‘WoW’ Project.

After deciding on the topic of investigation, the teacher helped the children to focus their investigation on finding out the ‘purpose’ and the ‘use’ of compound eyes of insects.

In the ‘I Find Out’ phase, children discuss, plan, and carry out their investigations to find out the answers to their questions. For this project, the children carried out their investigation using the following ways:

a. Books

In their quest to find answers, the children suggested looking for books in the library. The children brought books on insects to the class to share with their classmates. The books helped the children to find out that insects have compound eyes to allow the insects to see a wider area but with less clarity as compared to humans.

b. Videos

Children also looked for information from other sources such as videos. Through carefully selected videos, the children found out more information about the vision of insects, such as:

• similarities between the vision of insects and humans

• how compound eyes help insects to detect changes very quickly 

One of the children commented that looking through the lens of a kaleidoscope was similar to how the video showed vision of insects. To help children better relate their personal experiences to their findings, the teacher designed a recording sheet. In the recording sheet the children drew what they saw from their eyes when they looked at an object in one of the circles and then drew what they imagined an insect would see looking at the same object in another circle.

In the ‘I Know’ phase the children consolidated their findings and decided that they wanted to create an eye mask to show how an insect’s eye worked. Based on their prior knowledge, the children suggested to use familiar materials such as egg cartons and bubble wrap, which they felt would depict insects’ vision most accurately.

The children concluded their ‘WoW’ Project by bringing their compound eye masks out to the garden. They started looking around using the masks they had made. The children were intrigued by the difference in their view when they wore the mask and when the mask was off. They also discussed and shared with each other what they had learnt through this journey together. 

Some of them said, “I can only see in front, I cannot see the side.” One of the children said, “Teacher Ash, I see like a bee!” 

4. Conclusion

It was evident that the ‘WoW’ project enabled the children to act on their innate desire to explore, understand and apply the knowledge gained from answering the question, “How does the compound eyes of insects work?”. The children were able to tap on their existing knowledge about insects and use various sources of information to expand on and construct new knowledge. They were able to manipulate real objects, explore new ideas, reflect and interact with their peers and teacher in meaningful ways.

Contributed by: Ashwini Prasad Pillai & K1 Perseverance, 2020