“Josh, let’s find things without stingers, today,” said Morgan Springer, 15, of Hampden as her college biology lab partner pulled an earwig out of a cluster of wilted Queen Anne’s lace.
After sealing the insect in their “killing jar,” Josh Kocik, 16, of Hampden spotted a wasp flying further down the trail and ran toward the soccer field, swinging his net.
“Got it,” Josh said, peering into the closed net.
“Oh my God. Right after I said that?” Morgan said, walking up behind him.
“Mrs. Morris, can you help us with the wasp? I’m not good at this,” said Josh, keeping his hand clenched around the mouth of the net to trap the wasp in the end while Morgan opened the jar. “Morgan, it’s your time to shine, and if he escapes, I’m running.”
Students crowded around, and a male student said, “I kind of want to see this go down.” But with their teacher’s help, they safely transferred the riled insect in the jar.
Hampden Academy sophomores come to school in the fall with insects they collected over the summer, having already heard about the famous insect project that will be assigned to them by either Serena Morris or Lisl Moody, the college biology teachers.
The first stage of the project is insect collection. Teachers bring the students outside with “killing jars” full of ethyl acetate absorbed in plaster.
During a 20-minute outing Wednesday, students worked with their project partner to add to their growing collection.
“It’s kind of weird to catch bugs, and it’s a little fun,” said Heather Greatorex, 15, of Hampden. “My sister is a senior and she had to do it.”
“It’s an outstanding way for them to understand how classification works,” said Morris.
Classification groups for living things from broadest to most specific are domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species.
The students use a dichotomous key to identify the order of each insect. Their final insect display must have insects in nine different orders with one insect identified by the common name in each order. And they pick out one insect to identify down to the genus.
Every year, a person from the U.S. Department of Agriculture visits the college biology classes and talks to students about invasive insects and pests such as gypsy moths and Asian Longhorned Beetles. Weather, changes in climate and invasive species alter the insects students collect each year.
“What’s neat about this study is that I keep the data over the years of the insects we catch,” said Morris. “We’ve seen the insects changing, shifting in Maine. We saw the invasion of the Japanese beetles and the collapse of the honeybees.”
This year, students will have to work extra hard to complete their collections because a dry summer means fewer insects, said Morris. To help students out, Moody and Morris give them a pre-pinned insect when they ace biology quizzes.
“It gets them thinking about the natural world and I think a lot depends on the skill of observation in science,” said Morris. “They’re using a lot of higher order thinking skills and they get to create something.”
While Morris’ students frolicked outside, Moody’s students were scheduled to look at their insects under microscopes for the first time on Sept. 15.
“I don’t necessarily play with bugs, but I’m not afraid of them,” said Nick Wirta, 15, of Hampden as he dropped two live earwigs into a killing jar at the corner of the classroom. “I think [my partner and I] have all of our bugs. We have a whole bunch of the same, a couple of lady bugs, but I’m not sure if we have all the orders.”
He’ll find out when his class starts classifying insects next week.
“This one has only been frozen for one hour. I’m nervous it will come back to life,” said Abby Martin, 15, of Hampden, as she pushes a pin through a beetle she caught and froze at home. Most of the bug collecting is homework, though students take a few trips outside during class, but killing jars can’t leave school.
“I was running around my neighborhood with a pool net and everyone was staring at me,” said Morgan Sargent, 15, of Hampden.
Partners Andrya Ryan, 15, of Winterport, and Tony Dean, 16, of Newburgh, got together outside of class for a rainy bug-catching day.
“We found this white, slimy thing under this patch of moss. It had six legs, so we figured it was an insect,” said Andrya as Tony beckoned her over to the microscope to look at a grasshopper.
“I put it in the freezer, and the next morning, it had black spots on it. By the time I got it to school, it was completely black,” said Tony. The insect was a future moth in a stage of metamorphosis.
The project reminds Andrya of when she was a child and used to chase grasshoppers for hours.
“[Insects] don’t matter,” said Taylor Wagner, 15, of Hampden, and then paused. “Well, I guess they do, in their own special way. But putting them in a gas chamber — I’m not sure that the best way to study them is to kill them.”
Several students said that the insect collection was the most fun project because the homework was to catch insects, which is “awesome.”
At the end of the class period, wasp catcher Josh walked into Morris’s class with a white caterpillar balanced on the lid of his jar and hovered over an aquarium full of leaves.
A praying mantis, found by Alex Tardiff, 16, of Hampden at home, was housed in the aquarium and had laid eggs. The class has been watching the beautiful green predator. If they keep the eggs between 65 and 72 degrees, they will hatch in 3 to 5 weeks.
As the other students found their seats Josh yelled out to professor Morris, “Can I feed this to the mantis?”
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LISL IS CQ
Hed: An interest in insects
Subhed: Hampden Academy students get a chance to catch, classify creatures
BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTOS BY AISLINN SARNACKI
Codey Turner, 16, of Newburgh, examines a giant water bug under a microscope on Wednesday during college biology class at Hampden Academy. The students call the water bug a “turf bug” because they are seen flying around Hampden’s turf field during evening football games.
Sheyla White (left), of Winterport, and Julia Hidu, 15, of Hampden, coax a bumblebee trapped in their net to enter their “killing jar” on Wednesday.