Publish at March 09 2015 Updated May 30 2024
By the time you've read this article, you'll be able to use the word "myrmecology" in a common sentence, you'll no longer imagine crushing an ant in your classroom, but you may be seized with the urge to scratch!
Because by introducing ants into her school, Ange Ansour has turned her pupils into scientific apprentices. She has opened up her CM1-CM2 class at the Paul-Vaillant Couturier school in Bagneux to the outside world. The parents built the anthill and sealed it. The neighborhood showed a certain curiosity, and the scientific community got in on the act. Ants creating a buzz is scientifically incorrect, but it's true!
Why ants? Because it's simple, and because they have a collective organization, answers Ange Ansour in a Rue des Ecoles program from March 2013.
Research isn't just about reproducing experiments whose results adults already know. It's about doing things that have never been done before! Students make hypotheses, imagine experimental set-ups that could validate them, and then carry out the experiments. The same experiment is sometimes repeated several times. In this way, the children moved from questioning to problem-solving.
The case caused quite a stir and aroused a lot of curiosity. Ants have built a wall... But why? Perhaps to evacuate their waste? But when this wall is removed, they rush to build another. For more darkness? No. If light is sharply reduced, they continue to build this wall of debris. Ange Ansour's class formulated a number of hypotheses, called on other classes and scientists... But the mystery has not been solved.
Of course, this wonderful adventure is an opportunity to go beyond the scientific approach.
The children have learned to communicate precisely. They kept individual and collective digital notebooks. They exchanged information with adults and other classes via e-mail and twitter. This action provides an opportunity to use a wide range of texts, to read and write, and also to communicate orally.
François Taddeï explains that they have become part of "a community of knowledge", where everyone can learn from each other.
The children have even created songs around this experience.
Educational activities on the same theme have been carried out by other schools. The Young Myrmecologists website shows us that communication transcends borders, and that the desire to communicate is not hampered by language barriers!
Children are born researchers. So says François Taddeï, who took part in this adventure. They are curious, they share a desire to learn about the world around them, and they naturally discover their environment through experimentation. Like scientists, they also learn from their mistakes. We are gradually losing this skill. However, the education system can support this aptitude for research and embed learning in activities that encourage experimentation and the formulation of hypotheses.
Of course, this is not the first time that ants have entered the school. Academic websites are teeming (!) with examples.
The Grenoble Academy, for example, offers advice on raising a whole range of insects: beetles, beetles, ladybugs, silkworms... and ants. Montreal's espace pour la vie site is equally generous, giving you a choice of insects. Take your pick, but don't take them all!
Relais de sciences offers a booklet devoted entirely to ants, a very useful preparation for the many questions children may ask. They also give you instructions on how to make your own ant farm. The Toulouse academy also offers an educational trail with numerous documents devoted to ants.
What's most important is the coherence of the project and the involvement of all the different players. Ange Anssour was able to mobilize a large number of people around this project. She encouraged the young children to communicate, and was herself heavily involved.
The decision to anchor this work in the scientific community and in a research approach with François Taddeï nevertheless remains the real innovation responsible for the pedagogical success of this action.
The diagram below summarizes five of the many lessons to be learned from this work with young students.
Illustrations: Frédéric Duriez
Les enfants chercheurs: scientific research as a learning model rue des écoles, France Culture, March 30, 2013
Des élèves chercheurs et des fourmis - Stéphanie de Vanssay consulted March 5, 2015
https://ecolededemain.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/des-eleves-chercheurs-et-des-fourmis/
Students and ants - Stéphanie de Vanssay
https://storify.com/2vanssay/des-eleves-et-des-fourmis
insect breeding at school
http://www.ac-grenoble.fr/ien.bv/IMG/pdf_elevages_d_insectes_a_l_ecole.pdf
Relais d'sciences ants.
http://www.relais-sciences.org/odv/doc/cahier_fourmis.pdf
build an ant farm consulted February 18, 2015
http://www.relais-sciences.org/odv/doc/FA01_fourmi.pdf
Atelier élevage de fourmis consulted on February 18, 2015 http://pedagogie.ac-toulouse.fr/sciences31/spip.php?article66
Setting up an ant farm - space for life in Montreal
http://espacepourlavie.ca/amenager-une-fourmiliere
https://jeunesmyrmecologues.wordpress.com/
And to take this type of approach a step further :
François TaddeÏ - report to the OECD, February 2009
http://cri-paris.org/wp-content/uploads/OCDE-francois-taddei-FR-fev2009.pdf
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