You Asked About Insects: Development of a Resource Book for Primary and Junior Grades

Abstract

My experience as a presenter of science workshops to elementary school students and teachers led me to believe that there was a need for a resource book that answered the students questions about insects. My studies of curriculum development and in particular transformational education reinforced my philosophy that the students should have answers to the question that are important to them. My project was to produce and evaluate such a document that would be valuable to students and teachers. Elementary school children were surveyed to gather questions for the book. These questions were compiled, culled. categorized and answered to produce the resource book titled You Asked About Insects. After a pilot of the evaluation, copies of the book along with evaluation questionnaires for teachers for teachers and students were distributed to schools. Response to the student questionnaires was not adequate to draw conclusions. To gather more data, I travelled to a school and worked with the students to evaluate the book. My data shows that the book was well received by the students and the teachers. Teachers generally found it a good resource that had many answers and much information. It included information for which they previously would have had to refer to many different sources. Students were able to find the answers to the questions that they had about insects. They liked the format and were able to use the table of contents and the index to look up the answers to the questions they had.