Too young to collect?

DR. JAMES ADAMS JADAMS at em.daltonstate.edu
Thu Mar 30 11:56:10 EST 2000


LIsters,

Kelly Richers wrote:
 	As part of the "traveling science show" in Kern County, CA I 
taught over 300 students from 6th to 8th grade, in a 2 day period  
(150 per day) how to spread butterflies using Alfalfa butterflies I 
caught and froze previously.  It is ridiculuous to assume that young 
students cannot learn how to do this.   
Where do you think the future scientists are going to come from?   
What a strange way of thinking some people have.  


	Kelly, I'm with you.  I mounted my first Spicebush Swallowtail 
when I was five years old.  No, I don't have many specimens left 
from when I was a child, but it certainly gave me the foundation for 
the lepidopterist I have become.  It is all a learning experience, and 
to restrict learning until a later stage in life can simply squash the 
desire.

	My son is nearly three.  Already he has an interest in looking 
at what daddy is doing.  He's already destroyed several live moths 
because he wants to look at them.  According to some, I guess I 
better turn him in to the authorities now.  We are also working on 
the concept of not stepping on or squishing spiders, ants, roaches, 
etc. (especially outside) because they are living things.  He seems 
to be understanding the concept, at least to a point.  So even a 
three year old can handle some of what is involved with wanton 
killing versus learning.  Don't believe me?  Then try it with your own 
children when you have them.  They are capable of a lot more, at a 
young age, than most people give them credit for.

	James
	

Dr. James K. Adams
Dept. of Natural Science and Math
Dalton State College
213 N. College Drive
Dalton, GA  30720
Phone: (706)272-4427; fax: (706)272-2533
U of Michigan's President James Angell's 
  Secret of Success: "Grow antennae, not horns"


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