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Phenology and Climate: Lesson 1

Insect Activity and Migration Timing

Heather Shaffery, Teresa Randall, Keiana Cross | Published: April 8th, 2026 by K20 Center

  • Grade Level Grade Level 10th, 11th, 12th
  • Subject Subject Science
  • Course Course Environmental Science
  • Time Frame Time Frame 250 minutes
  • Duration More 4-5 Periods

Summary

This is the first lesson in a three-lesson series examining the relationships among insect migration, bird migration, and temperature change over time. In this lesson, students will learn about phenology (the timing of biological events) by exploring a variety of insect data sets. Through scaffolded analysis of graphical data, the use of an interactive digital model, and life history descriptions, students will develop an understanding of (1) how insect activity varies over a season and (2) how this migration activity has changed over time. From these activities, they will draw conclusions and make predictions about the biological significance of the data sets.

Essential Question(s)

1. How do insect activity and migration change seasonally? 2. Why is the timing of seasonal insect activity and migration important?

Snapshot

Engage

Students listen to a news story about the “insect highway” and generate questions.

Explore

Students create and interpret graphs of seasonal insect activity data and begin generating “big science ideas.”

Explain

Students revisit their initial questions and learn about phenology and the source of the Explore data.

Extend

Students explore a model of insect migration data and identify patterns in insect arrival over time.

Evaluate

Students determine what information they still need in order to answer their remaining questions and create a Six-Word Memoir summarizing their learning.

Materials

  • Lesson slides

  • Poster paper

  • Meter stick or ruler

  • Sticky notes

  • 8 Colored markers (1 color per group)

  • Day of Year Tables handout (attached; cut into strips; 1 per group)

  • Insect Arrival Data handout (attached; cut into tables; 1 per group)

  • WIS-WIM handout (attached; 1 per student)

  • Leafhopper Map Comparison handout (attached; 1 per student)

Preparation

45 Minute(s)

Prior to the start of class, prepare the following:

  • Create a Big Ideas Anchor Chart on poster paper, a whiteboard, Google Doc, etc. Each lesson in this series will note when you may want to record information on the Anchor Chart.

  • In the Engage section, the 5-Minute Listen player has a download option so that you can save the audio file ahead of time and play it from your device. There is also a transcript of the recording available for students who might benefit from reading along while they listen.

  • For the Explore section, create a large graph on a piece of poster paper or whiteboard.

  • The x-axis should be the day of the year, numbered from 100-250 in intervals of 5 days. It will also be helpful to indicate the months. (A day of year by month reference is provided in the Day of Year Tables handout, which can be printed as a strip for each student group.).

  • The y-axis should be the percent of insect arrivals, numbered from 0-100 in intervals of 5%. Graph the data for 2013 and draw a line connecting the points using a meter stick or ruler:

    • 2013 Data

      • 10% - 152

      • 25% - 185

      • 50% - 186

      • 75% - 215

      • 90% - 246

  • This line is to help distinguish the 2013 data points from those the students will plot. It does not indicate any mathematical meaning. An example of this graph is shown on slide 11.

  • If you do not have large enough poster paper, the Anchor Chart can also be drawn on a white board or a piece of graph paper displayed with a document camera.

  • Be sure to check with your school and/or district to make sure that the Shiny App website is unblocked and accessible to student devices. This page will be used for the rest of this 3-part lesson series.

Engage

45 Minute(s)

Introduce the lesson title, the lesson objective, and the essential questions on slides 2-4. Go to slide 5 and introduce students to the Look Up! The Billion-Bug Highway You Can't See story. Play the “5-Minute Listen” version of the story. After listening once, play the story a second time. During this second play, provide students with sticky notes and ask them to come up with questions about the story as they listen. If you use a Driving Question Board (see paragraph below Teacher’s Note: Format), have them write each question on its own sticky note.

Go to slide 6. Using the Stand-Up, Sit-Down strategy, have students share out their questions one at a time and create a class list from the responses. Use these questions to begin a class Driving Question Board. Record questions in a public space that can be referred back to at a later time (e.g. poster paper, Google Doc, whiteboard, etc.).

Explore

45 Minute(s)

Break students into eight groups. Provide each group one table from the Insect Arrival Data handout (2014–2021) and a colored marker. While working on the following WIS-WIM activity, have a volunteer from each group, one at a time, add their % arrival data (10, 25, 50, 75, 90% values) on the large graph you created prior to the start of class. They will look at this graph of insect arrival data as a whole group later.

Hand out a copy of the WIS-WIM handout to each of the groups. Go to slide 7. Using the WIS-WIM strategy, ask students to identify features of the graph(s). After they’ve had a few minutes, continue to slide 8 and ask them to determine the meaning of those specific observations. Finally, go to slide 9 and have them interpret the entire figure and write a brief caption summarizing what the figure communicates. When all groups have finished, display the figure on slide 10 and ask a few volunteers to share their conclusions with the class.

Next, return to the whole-class graph of insect arrival data. Use the WIS-WIM strategy here too, but ask the class to develop the ideas together as a group. Whether you choose to record students’ WIS-WIM information on the figure is up to you. Guide students to explain the meaning of the graph in one to two sentences and record their final conclusion(s) on the Big Ideas Anchor Chart. Finally, show students slide 11 to help them understand the relationship between the two graphs. If they are struggling to interpret the graph adequately, you could show this slide before slide 10 to scaffold their understanding.

Explain

50 Minute(s)

Go to slides 12-16 and review with students the information about insect migration and reasons why organisms would migrate. Follow by a brief overview of phenology. The notes section of the slides provides additional optional details you can share with students. Go to slide 17 and explain the concept of degree days to students.

Slides 18-21 cover how radar is used to detect organisms and include example radar images. More detailed information about the content is provided in the notes section of these slides. As you lead students through the content, ask them to consider: “How could ‘degree days’ explain the patterns we saw in the insect arrival data?"

Go to slide 22. At this point, the class should return their attention to the questions they generated in the Engage. Ask the class to determine whether they can answer any of their questions at this point, and if so, determine whether the answers belong on the Big Ideas list.

After that, solicit any new questions students have after their Explore activities. If the questions were grouped by theme, this is also a good point to re-evaluate the themes to determine whether there are better ways to group the questions. Go to slide 23 and ask students to add any other big ideas they feel they learned from the information provided to the anchor chart in the Explain.

Go to slides 24-25 to provide students some life history information about potato leafhoppers, which are the focal organism in the Extend activity.

Extend

45 Minute(s)

Now that students have examined the seasonal activity of resident insects (i.e., from Oklahoma), next they will explore insect migration timing using potato leafhopper data. Go to slide 26. Direct students to the “Leafhopper Migration” page of the Shiny app and show them how to change the model’s variables. See the Leafhopper Migration Guide for details on how to help students navigate the model. Provide students with a copy of the Leafhopper Map Comparison handout.

Once students have accessed the Shiny app, go to slide 27 and walk them through the instructions. Leave these displayed throughout the work time for reference.

Have students focus on Map 1 to begin. They should pick a year early in the time series and move the days of the year slider to look for patterns in insect arrival. Next, they should select a different year for Map 2 and repeat the process, looking for patterns in insect arrival for that year specifically.

Finally, have them compare the side-by-side maps to identify trends between the years. Direct their attention to the horizontal latitude line as part of their analysis. This shows an approximate average of the range over which the insects have migrated (e.g., as insects are detected in more northern states, the line will shift north).

Bring students together as a class to discuss their results. Go to slide 28 and ask volunteers to share their findings. Continue the conversation by going to slides 29-30 and having students discuss the questions.

Evaluate

30 Minute(s)

Go to slide 31. Return one more time to the driving question board to determine whether any can be answered and whether any should be removed (e.g., can’t be answered, are no longer interesting, etc.). Give students a few minutes to think about what other information they might need to answer their existing questions. From these ideas, encourage them to generate questions that would help them collect the missing information they need (i.e., what question could we ask to generate/find the information we need?). Add these to the question list. Next, go to slide 32 and ask students whether there are any new Big Ideas to add to their list and record them.

Go to slide 33. To wrap up the lesson, ask students to create a Six-Word Memoir to summarize the most scientifically meaningful thing they learned about insect phenology (e.g., a cool fact about leafhoppers wouldn’t be meaningful in this case).

Resources

Publisher

K20 Center

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Downloads

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Standards

ACT College and Career Readiness Standards - Science (6-12)
IOD202: Identify basic features of a table, graph, or diagram (e.g., units of measurement)
IOD502: Compare or combine data from a complex data presentation
Next Generation Science Standards (Grades 9, 10, 11, 12)
HS-LS2-2: Use mathematical representations to support and revise explanations based on evidence about factors affecting biodiversity and populations in ecosystems of different scales.
Oklahoma Academic Standards (Biology)
B.LS2.2 : Use mathematical representations to support and revise explanations based on evidence about factors affecting biodiversity and populations in ecosystems of different scales.
Oklahoma Academic Standards (Environmental Science)
EN.LS2.2: Use mathematical representations to support and revise explanations based on evidence about factors affecting biodiversity and populations in ecosystems of different scales.

Facilitator Resources

Click on a file type icon to download an attachment.

  • Leafhopper Migration Guide—Phenology and Climate 1
  • Lesson 1 Slides—Phenology and Climate 1

Learner Handouts

Click on a file type icon to download an attachment.

  • Day of Year Tables—Phenology and Climate 1
  • Insect Arrival Data—Phenology and Climate 1
  • Leafhopper Map Comparison—Phenology and Climate 1
  • WIS-WIM—Phenology and Climate 1

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