Questions about Cicadas

Zara asked two interesting questions on the
blog about Cicadas.

How do Cicadas change into their Adult Costume?
What is the Adult Costume?

We divided the girls into two groups and had a conversation this morning,
about these questions...

Mrs Bayes:
I asked Zara where the idea of the ‘costume’ came from and she said that the man on the
video had talked about the Cicada’s costume changing. Some other thoughts...

Isabella: “They do it when they get older. They change.
It’s some sort of magic that makes the costume”.

What do you think a Cicada costume is?

Lily: “It’s gooey; it’s the body, it’s wet. It’s wet when it comes out”.

Isabella: “I think it is wet from the rain in the tree”.

I didn’t see any rain in the video, did you?

Isabella ... “ahhh no, well when it gets hot. When it’s in it’s grub shell it gets gooey”.

Zara: “I agree with Isabella, when it gets hot, then it gets gooey. When it’s
a grub shell it gets gooey. Then the rain comes”.

I introduced the word metamorphosis and explained that it was a word that describes insects that change into something new. Immediately Zara asked “do you mean like when a Chrysalis changes into a butterfly?” and Isabella said “Or do you mean when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly?”

I agreed that those were two really good examples of metamorphosis, although I wasn’t sure whether to ‘unpack’ the idea of the ‘chrysalis as opposed to the caterpillar/butterfly inside the chrysalis. I decided to let it sit...

From these ideas I mentioned that metamorphosis also occurs when tadpoles change into frogs.


And the second group:

We talked about Zara’s questions and I asked them about their ideas about...

‘What is their Adult Costume?’

“When they grow up into big parents” Mika
“It is the shell or the skin” Jacqui
“They grow their big skins when they climb up the tree and they go up, up, up the tree and grow their adult costume” Mika

“The adult costume...it is the skin part” Jacqui
“The skin is their bone colour” Jacqui
“The adult costume is brown” Féline
“No, it isn’t that’s the grub” Mika
“It is green, white and black” Scarlett

How do Cicada’s change into their adult costume?

“Maybe cicadas go into a flower and get wet and then they go into their adult costume”
Féline

“Maybe they get paint and paint themselves” Féline

“No they change themselves...like they change colour maybe from the sun?” Jacqui



We then re watched the video of the Cicada hatching, that the girls never seem to tire of!

Going over these conversations, we can see that there maybe an understanding that temperature might play a part in the change process. The girls are also relating the change to the age (adult) of the Cicada.

The second group has been influenced by some of the girls thoughts that the costume is referring to the Cicada’s skin. They seem to be interested in the colour and where it comes from. A suggestion has been made that there is a connection to the colour, back to the sun. We are wondering if that is to do with the temperatures of the sun or the colour of the sun? Is the sun causing causing the change?

Is the discussion around rain and wet and dry, to do with what causes the Cicada to change?

Thinking... thinking... thinking...