Demonstrating parasitism
Teachers can demonstrate biological control of aphids to their students by ordering a ‘banker plant’ system from Biobest. The small banker plant system (4 x 5 x 3 inches) contains a barley plant inoculated with 50-100 cherry oat aphids feeding on the barley plant ($31.21 + Freight [FRT approx. $65.00]). The barley plant can be cut into 2-4 pieces and repotted if the teacher would like small groups of students to demonstrate parasitism. Teachers then can order 500 aphid parasitoids for $25-30 + freight which arrive as pupae. When adult parasitoids start to emerge from the pupae they can be placed into cages with the inoculated barley plants and students can observe parasitism. Students can also engineer their own “wasp biodome” to successfully observe parasitism, rear the developing parasitoid larvae, and observe adult parasitoid emergence from parasitized aphids mummies. Students can design solutions to problems such as how to ensure tiny wasps do not escape, how to observe parasitism through the biodome, what do the wasps, its host and host’s host-plant require to survive, and how to calculate percentage of aphids parasitized? This project meets Performance Expectation HS-LS4 outlined in the Next Generation Science Standards.
There is a minimal of $50 per order, therefore teachers may need to combined orders.