Tomato hornworm lesson
Even though it's late in the summer...fall, actually...it doesn't hurt to begin a study of the tomato hornworm or tobacco hornworm. They may still be found in your garden.
This is a pest that can do a lot of damage to tomato crops and should be dealt with. However, they are also just about the easiest caterpillar to use for close up study of their life cycle.
You can find a lot of information online at places that help you identify, with pictures, the tobacco or tomato hornworm. It's a good idea to look for other resources as well to complete the study, of course, but with so much information out there, you shouldn't have any problems designing a science unit study around this interesting, though crop-damaging, creature.
Things to search for:
- Reproduction
- Diet
- Life stages
- Season
- Identification
One of my first encounters with the moth that develops from the caterpillar was at night, in my garden. What looked like a hummingbird was flitting from flower to flower among the pepper plants. He/she was hovering and even flying backwards. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought it was a fairy. Perhaps, that's where the notion of fairies came from!
You may be fortunate enough to still be able to capture a hornworm and feed it, and watch it develop through its stages into the large moth it becomes.
Labels: Science, Unit Studies
posted by Ann crum @ 7:45 PM
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