Dung beetles:A lesson in drawing inferences

Dung Beetles text for shared readingDung Beetles shared reading lesson planYou'd Better Look Twice co-operativelearning activityYou'd Better Look Twice graphic organiserDrawing Inferences individual reflection

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If you were a dung beetle, you’d know that it’s smart to roll your dung ball home in the straightest possible line – to avoid other beetles stealing it. Balls of dung are a precious food, after all.

Nocturnal African dung beetles do their dung-rolling by night. It was believed that they use the moon as a guide to travel in straight lines. But a team of scientists recently noticed that the beetles could still stay on track even on moonless nights. To investigate further, they compared how the beetles travelled under a full moon, under an overcast night sky and under a clear moonless sky. The beetles that could see the full moon rolled their dung in straight lines. Under the overcast sky, the beetles had trouble keeping straight. Surprisingly though, under a clear moonless sky the beetles were still able to travel in straight lines.If they weren’t using the moon to navigate by, what were they using?

The New Stars of the Insect WorldDung Beetles

If you look at the clear night sky, you should see a bright line of stars called the Milky Way. It’s easier to

see in the countryside, away from bright city lights. Maybe the beetles

were using the Milky Way to travel straight? To test this theory, the scientists moved the beetles into a planetarium, where they could control exactly which stars the beetles could see.This time, they compared how the beetles did when they could see the Milky Way with when they could not see it. Sure enough, they were using the Milky Way to navigate! Until now, using celestial techniques to navigate was something only humans and a small number of other animals were known to do. Yet now it seems dung beetles should get this star status, too!

Nocturnal dung beetles can see a thousand

times better than honeybees.

This text is based on research described in Current Biology, 24 January 2013.

NON-FICTION Drawing Inferences

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Dung Beetles The New Stars of the Insect World

Lesson focusPupils will learn how to improve their comprehension by using clues in the text to help them make predictions and draw inferences, and to be able to explain the difference between the two.

Text type Article

An article is a descriptive account of how something works or why something happens. It gives information and opinions about events, places or living things. This text piece contains cause/effect, compare/contrast, sequential and descriptive text structure features.

Pages 141–144 of this book include vocabulary support for EAL pupils and struggling readers:celestial, Milky Way, nocturnal, overcast, planetarium, techniques

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21 Co-operative Activity Book

This is an aside to the reader, more formally known as a “parenthetical element”, because if it is removed, the sentence is still complete and conveys its main idea. It implies that the reader already knows how important dung is, and simply needs to be reminded.

The writer describes the experiment, but instead of describing its results, they describe its conclusion. What do pupils think happened in the planetarium when the beetles were shown the Milky Way and when they weren’t?

Pupils can infer different ways in which honeybees and dung beetles rely on their senses.

Follow-up activity

This begs the question of which other animals can use the stars to navigate. It is a question that pupils can take away from the text and investigate in their own time.

This is an example of the “passive voice”, where the grammatical subject of the sentence (“it”) is the person, thing or idea upon which the action of the verb (“believed”) is performed.

This is an example of redundancy, because the meaning of “active by night” is conveyed by “nocturnal”. However, repeating this point allows the author to add context for readers who are not familiar with this word, or to show that it is especially relevant.

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Lesson focusIn this lesson, you will learn how to use clues in the text to help you make predictions and draw inferences, and to be able to explain the difference between the two.

Note: Before you begin the lesson, mask the text so only the title shows.

Writing activityImagine you are going somewhere you haven’t been before. Describe how you will find your way there. What navigation tools will you use?

Interacting with the textRead the first three paragraphs of the text aloud. Model how to draw an inference from the text. For example, “The text tells me that dung beetles can navigate in a straight line any clear night – even if there is no moon. Therefore, I can infer that the beetles are not using the moon but something else in the night sky. The only other things in the sky at night are stars and planets so I can infer that they must use either of these”.

With your partner(s), discuss what clues I used from the text to draw my inference, and what background knowledge I used to help me.

Read the remaining text aloud.

With your partner(s), discuss what inferences you can draw about why this investigation was important to scientists. Why might they want to know how the dung beetles navigated? What will they use the results for? Use clues from the text as well as your background knowledge to help you.

Reflecting on the textFacilitate a whole-group discuss about the scientific method. What was the scientists’ hypothesis? What steps did the scientists follow in their investigation? What inferences can you draw about why scientists use this method?

With your partner(s), discuss how drawing inferences about this text helped you to understand the text better, and made the reading more interesting.

Prior to readingState the lesson focus. Display the title, but not the subtitle, and read it aloud. Invite the pupils to make predictions (predictions are a type of inference) about the text. Ask them to do this by drawing inferences from the words, font and design of the title. This serves to activate their prior (world) knowledge. Discuss their predictions and model your own.

Display the subtitle.

With your learning partner, discuss how the subtitle adds to your thinking about the title. Does it confirm or change your prediction about the text?

Display the introduction.

Skim and scan the introduction. With your learning partner(s), discuss how the introduction adds to your thinking about the title and subtitle. What new predictions can you make about the text?

Display the entire text.

Before reading

Read the title.

With your learning partner(s), discuss what you predict this text will be about. Draw an inference about what might happen if you only look once.

Skim and scan the text and illustrations.

During reading

Read the text aloud or listen to the audio.

With your partner(s), discuss an inference you can draw from the first subheading. What clue does it give you about what you might note at the end of the procedure? (Hint: look at the word “trap”.)

Do the first and second procedures. (Use the strip provided on the graphic organiser to complete the second experiment.)

Do the third procedure. Use the transparency and marker to draw the arrowheads on the lines provided in the text.

With your partner(s), discuss the inferences you can draw about human vision from these activities.

After reading

Discuss how drawing inferences helped you to deepen your understanding of this text.

Writing activity

Work with your partner(s) to fill out the graphic organiser on page 64 of the Reflection Journal.

"You Be the Scientist!: You'd Better Look Twice." Science Spin Primary, March 2001. Copyright © 2001 Weekly Reader

Corporation. All rights reserved.

The overlap trapTo do:1. Keep your eyes on

the two images.2. Slowly bring the

page towards your face so that your nose

touches the X.3. Note what happens.

X marks the dot

To do:1. From unlined paper, cut a 22 cm (8.5 in) by 2.5 cm

(1 in) strip.2. Draw a dot and an X with the marker on the strip of

paper, as shown above.3. Hold the strip of paper at arm’s length. The X should be

on the right-hand side.4. Close your right eye. Slowly move the strip towards

your face while looking at the X with your left eye.5. Try the experiment again, but close your left eye this

time and turn the strip around so that the X is on the left-hand side.

6. Note what happens. Then try moving the strip towards your face with both eyes open.

Lengthy linesTo do:1. Look at the two lines above. Note that they are the

same length.

2. Use a marker and the blank transparency to draw an arrowhead on both ends of the top line. Those arrowheads should point outwards.

3. Now draw arrowheads on both ends of the bottom line. But make those arrowheads point inwards.

4. Do the lines look different now?

Drawing Inferences

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Drawing Inferences

We draw inferences by “reading between the lines”.

When we draw inferences, we really

think about what the text says and

what we can figure out that isn’t

directly stated in the text.

Date: 2/12/13 Title: The Island of the Blue Dolphins

What the text said: “The Russian smiled and held up his hand

… My father also held up his hand. I could not see his face,

but I doubted that he smiled in return.”

My inference(s): Karana thinks her father is unhappy to

meet the Russian hunters.

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Date: Title:

What the text said:

My inference(s):

Date: Title:

What the text said:

My inference(s):