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     Questions asked about the praying mantis (plural is mantids) from Mrs. Hall and the Taft Science Magnet Kindergarten Class.

QI.  How do you take care of them?
 Chad and Alica

A1.  As you know, they will eat anything you put in the cage! The best way to take care of a mantid is to keep it warm and keep feeding it. When I was a park naturalist I captured a large female praying mantis and kept it for several days. I wasn't as lucky as you have been. I fed it all kinds of insects, it liked crickets best. I kept it in the basement, where it may have been too cool, and it died.

     The neat thing about keeping one this time of the year (fall), is she'll live longer than normal. Praying mantids don't live much after the first frost, and if they do they aren't too active, because they're cold blooded (an animal that has a body temperature the same as the air). So, keep feeding her and keep her warm. The best way to keep her warm is to put a light bulb in the top of the cage.--TN

Q2.  Do they need water?
  Austin

A2. Yes! Every insect needs water, just like all other animals. Insects, for the most part, don't need to drink water, like people. They get water from the food they eat. A praying mantis eats other insects, and insects are about 85% water. Most living things are mostly made of water. Flying insects need more water because they expend more energy

flying and get hotter. I have seen yellowjackets lined up around the edge of the water in a bird feeder drinking. Some insects will get water from a drop of dew. Water is very important.--TN

Q3.  How do we take care of the eggs?
 Benjamin

A1.  The praying mantis has done all the hard work. The egg case, called an ootheca, is made out of frothy whipped material that becomes very hard. The material is so hard the young can't break it. However, there is a seam down the middle of the case, which is soft enough for the young mantids to break. The egg case is made to last through the winter. The female might lay fifteen or more of these eggcases before winter. I would keep the egg case in a cool place. If you don't make it cool like winter, the eggs might be damaged. If everything works out, come spring, you might have hundreds of tiny praying mantids in your room. The tiny insects are also hard to keep in a cage; they get through the screen mesh. --TN

     People living in a world of electrical energy understandably have a hard time grasping the conventional fundamental concepts of electrical circuits. Researchers have found that children in secondary schools and students in universities often think in terms of the delivery of electrical energy from a source to a consumer. They may think the switch is the source, the fuse box or the transformer on a pole, or the batteries in their many, battery operated appliances, or they may know about power plants, or space-age solar cells (photo-voltaic cells) or fuel cells. They may have diverse ideas about how electrical energy is delivered from the source to the consumer and transformed into mechanical, light, heat, or sound energy. They may even know that it takes energy to make energy--that fossil fuels, nuclear energy, solar energy, burning biomass, etc. are sources behind the obvious sources. All of these ideas are natural and intelligent ones, as reflections on the subject of electrical energy in our lives and on our planet. However, what is surprising, perhaps, is that these ideas create conflicts or conceptual barriers with the traditional textbook concepts of circuits, currents, voltage, and resistance. Energy concepts lead a lot of people to predict incorrectly for a linear battery-wire-bulb array like this (figure A), or for a circuit involving only one contact point with a bulb like this (figure B):

      Faced with the circuits depicted on the attached pages, most people of all ages will predict that some bulbs will light that won't. Such circuits are then evidently peculiar. Why does the curriculum emphasize circuits instead of the more easily understood electrical energy concepts? Tradition, of course! The recency of an energy crisis and new curriculum materials about it, a belief that science is simple, and a lack of tests that identify this confusion, all contribute. But should we throw the traditional circuit concepts out of the curriculum? Aren't they legitimate science? Shouldn't we expect children to face their misunderstandings, and wrong predictions, and try to correct them ?

      I'm still open to an affirmative answer to that question because I feel that puzzles are highly motivating. If children and teachers are surprised that some of their predictions about the attached circuit diagrams don't work as they expect, they should feel excited and challenged. No one should tell "the answer" to a student trying to figure out things for themselves. But at the same time, those of us who think we know should not feel that our answers should be obvious to anyone.

    If we bring toy puzzles into the classroom for children to work on during their spare time, we would not want to grade them on whether or not they succeed in solving them, but we might add a note on their report card about whether or not they stick to a difficult task to the end. That is the spirit in which I include the attached circuit drawings Tom and I have had fun creating on our computer. Most of them are puzzling just because they involve a conflict or perceptual switch between the various concepts people have of electrical energy and the circuit concepts that a few of us who have spent hours measuring currents and voltages have developed. I don't have much hope that many of our elementary school pupils will develop sound circuit concepts from these or any of the kits or units I have seen, and I don't worry about it, either. But I hope that everyone will develop a love for trying to solve mysteries of science. That's one of the main goals that the State of Illinois science testing people are trying to figure out how to measure.

    So I recommend that, after some hands-on messing about with batteries and bulbs, teachers try handing out these sheets to their students, as I did recently in a third grade class. They should ask them to mark them according to the key at the top of the first page, and then try constructing the circuits with real batteries, bulbs, switches and wires to check their own predictions. No answer key is provided because the answers differ a little depending on how strong the batteries are and how resistant the bulbs are. Most of these circuits require more than two hands to hold all the contacts firm, so cooperative learning is a good way to go. For testing the more complex circuits, battery holders, bulb sockets, and wires with clips on the ends are worth what they cost in money to purchase them or in labor to make them. Don't be alarmed, but be happy, if there is more surprise than confirmation when these circuits are tested. Surprise may motivate a few children to experiment on their own with flashlight batteries and toy, battery-operated devices or to read library books on electricity or about the scientists who discovered electrical circuits. Best of all, they could also motivate a few children to experiment with transistors and diodes which extend traditional circuit concepts into the new technologies of electronics.--JE

    "Today, with the use of giant computers, the number system based on two is very important. [Most computers] use this system. To understand why, let us look at the light switch in your room. The light is either "off" or it is "on."

There are just two positions, "off" or "on." This, of course, is only if the bulb works and there is electric current. Parts of computers work just as your light switch. They are either "off" or they are "on." This is called a flip-flop circuit. A flip-flop circuit works well with a number system based on two.""This number system is called the binary ( say: BY-nary ) system. It uses only two symbols - 0 and 1. With these two symbols we can write many numbers,"(News Ways In Math, by Arthur Jonas,: pg. 25). But isn't it odd the way they drew the circuits in this book on binary math?

Please send us mail! We have only received three questions so far, and it's the end of the semester! We have written three newsletters and are currently working on an addendum to the Science Network total report. Copies of this will be available soon. Here are some of the questions that didn't make it into the final report last summer.

Q3. How long is Haley’s comet?
(Robert N./ James M.) 5th Grade

AS Like many other comets, Haley’s comet developed a tail millions of miles long while it was passing near the sun. That was in 1986. However, the tail evaporated or was shrunken again after it left the neighborhood of the sun.

Q4. Is there any computer program that shows pictures of planets, showing the craters and other things on the planets?

A4. The only computer program I've been able to find that shows such things is just about the moon. It's called "Moon Lander." There is also a short 3D movie named "Mars the Movie," in which a simulated Right ranges from three miles to 300 miles above the surface of the planet. The images are from the Viking Orbiter spacecraft.--JE

Q5. How big is the Milky Way? (James M./ Robert N.)

A5. When you look at the Milky Way in the sky, it goes all around the Earth. That is, if you could travel by fast airplane above the clouds to follow the sun after it has set and gotten dark, you would be able to see the Milky Way all the way around the world and back to where you started. Or if you stay in one place and look at the Milky Way every week, in one year, you will see the whole circle, while going out on one night, you only see half. Another way to see all of the Milky Way is to stay up all night on a night which is dark for twelve hours or longer.

Another answer to your question is to think of all the stars in the sky and our sun, too as belonging to a big fat pancake called the Milky Way galaxy. The milky band we see across the sky is just made up of stars we see looking from inside the pancake toward the rest of the pancake. The thinner stars in other parts of the sky are seen by looking toward the outside of the pancake. That pancake, called the Milky Way galaxy, is 100,000 light years across.

Q6. When is the world going to end?

A6. It won't last much more than 5,000,000,000 years, according to R. Ulrich, and astronomer. At that time, the sun would become a red giant star, growing bigger than the earth's orbit and the earth would gradually vaporize.

Q7. How many different animals are there in the world? --John 2nd Grade

A7. 918,000 is an estimate made 30 years ago. There are probably several millions of different kinds of animals in the world. Many kinds of animals (like the dodo bird and the passenger pigeon) aren't around any more because they have been hunted to extinction. The Bald Eagle (our national symbol) is in danger of becoming extinct. Elephants are also in danger of disappearing because people are killing them for their ivory tusks.

Q8. Why do people have arguments?

A8.  Do you like arguments or not? I guess some arguments are good and some are bad. People think differently because they have different experiences. One likes salt and another doesn't. One likes to sleep late and another likes to get up early. We are made differently, and we are used to different things. Sometimes, we have been thinking about a certain idea--wouldn't it be neat to go for a walk, and someone else has been thinking about how neat it would be to go for a ride. The next day, we might have just the opposite thoughts because we started thinking differently that day. If we always want other people to agree with us, we don't learn much. We can be lazy and stay the same if they agree with us. If we want to learn, we have to try to think: how could my friend, parent, or teacher think so differently? Not to argue, but to find out how, we should ask them to explain, and tell them how we feel. Everyone should have a turn to speak and a turn to listen. Then an argument can be fun and result in learning.

Q9. What do people think of the Loch Ness monster?

A9. An excellent book called the Day of the Dinosaurs by John Man, shows the best photograph ever taken of the Loch Ness monster. It was taken in 1934 by a surgeon, Dr. R. K. Wilson. It looks like a Plesiosaur's neck sticking out of the water. Mr. Man says there are three objections to that idea. Plesiosaurs breathe air and would have to come up for air several times an hour, the water is too cold (42 degrees Fahrenheit) for the reptiles to live in, and during the ice age, that part of the world was covered with ice a thousand feet thick or more. I think it's one of science's mysteries. What do you think of the Loch Ness monster? Do you like mysteries?

Q9. How many rings does Saturn have?

A9. According to an article in Scientific American, July 1987, there appear to be five rings but two of the rings are actually split, therefore, it looks like seven. The rings of Saturn have a diameter of about 60,000 kilometers.

Please submit questions or comments by FrEdMail to either:
JEASLEY@UIUCEDD TNEAL@UIUCEDU
either enter them in the QUEST board @UIUCEDII or send them to us by mail to:
CIRCE, 270 EDUCATION
1310 S. SIXTH ST.
CHAMPAIGN, IL 61820

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