What do you see when you turn a 3mm ant to a 2 meter giant?

To see something intentionally sometimes it helps to change our perspective. With this project we challenged the students to select a small insect and build a model that is human size (as big or bigger than they are). After some initial exploration on various insects we decided on the tiny ant as our subject of exploration. It’s not hard to find an ant, they live just about everywhere except on ice. We soon found at least 2 groups of ants living nearby and after some careful observation we decided they were Harvester Ants (Mercer Ants). In each class we examined the anatomy of the ant focusing on the proportion of the body parts and movement of the legs. To understand the movement of the legs we first built a wooden model with 6 legs which allowed many of the students to experience wood working for the first time. Second, I started to build a metal armature out of steel rods. This portion of the project took about a month. Third, we started to mold the different body parts out of cardboard, foam and paper cement. Once the basic shape was there, we started to mold the finish skin/ shell with plastic/ paper cement. The final step is to paint the ant. We selected lemon yellow as this was a favorite color of one of our students. In all the project took about 4 months to complete.

Was the project worth it? What was the highlight? Ants are some of the most amazing communal animals on earth. They are just one giant family taking care of each other. One of the initial goals was to give the students an once in a life time opportunity to make something extraordinary. To show them by example that they can dream big and take small steps to reach their goal. I believe we achieved that with this project.