I wonder if you have ever stopped to watch an earthworm?
What do you notice?
I thought it might be fun to include some math in our observation of earthworms this week.
Our focus was measurement and statistics.
Can you measure a worm? This is the question I asked my children. My 14 year old was adamant that it wasn’t possible. “They keep shrinking and stretching, they don’t stay the one length!” That’s true, that is a problem, but what solutions can you come up with? Find some worms and see if you can come up with a solution.
Other than measuring length, what are some other numbers we can look at when we study earthworms? Take some time to let your children brainstorm other numbers…
Did they think of:
- how many different kinds?
- the largest earthworm?
- the smallest?
- how many segments?
- how long do they live?
- how many countries have earthworms? how many don’t?
- How much does and earthworm weight?
Maybe they though of some other number that I haven’t! I wonder if they included “How many hearts does an earthworm have?” Would they be surprised to find out that they have 5! You can read about an earthworms circulatory system in an article by Sciencing.com.
Making a info-graphic is a great way to take all the statistics that you have discovered about earthworms and display them in a visually pleasing way. You can see an example of a earthworm info-graphic here.
You might like to this video to find some earthworm facts.
When you have created a Earthworm Info-graphic poster, send us a picture and we will add it to our photo gallery below!
If you would like to study Earthworms further, Nature Study Australia’s Volume 2, lesson 5 is all about them.
