STR Micro-Lesson: Impossible!
(click here to see the full image)
Question
This image might make you think of weird landforms on a distant planet, but in reality it’s a part of a living organism on earth on a much, much smaller scale. And how it works was a mystery that confounded scientists for almost 80 years, because it does something that was “proven” to be impossible. What is it?
Answer
This is a section of a bee’s wing, viewed at 50x with a handheld digital microscope such as STR’s “Scope on a Rope”. In 1938, French entomologist August Magnan and his assistant André Sainte-Lague calculated that bee flight was aerodynamically impossible, and it wasn't until 2005 that scientists began to understand how a bee’s rather small, stubby wings could support its relatively massive weight in flight.
Micro-Lesson* Plan
Topic: Forces
Download the enlarged version of the image above and show it to your class (using a projector or a color printout). Ask the question just below the image. You may wish to give hints.
Once you have elicited or presented the answer, explain to students that for many, many years scientists could not figure out how such small wings could support the relatively heavy weight of a bee’s body; only recently did they begin to understand it, with the aid of high speed photographic methods that made it possible to observe the exact motion of the wings, which flap at over 200 beats per second.
Draw a diagram that shows the forces that operate on a bee in flight: the downward force of gravity, the upward force of the wings lifting the body, the forward force, also provided by the wings, and the backwards force of air resistance. Point out that the upward and downwards forces must be exactly balanced for the bee to maintain a constant distance about the ground, and that the forward force must be greater than the backwards force in order for the bee to get to where it’s going. From there you can move onto other topics related to forces and flight, such as Newton’s laws, the vector nature of force, Bernoulli’s Principle, etc. These links may be helpful:
Deciphering The Mystery Of Bee Flight
More…
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Comments?
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*STR Micro-Lessons™ are designed as "plug-ins" to support and augment standards-based science teaching and learning. For complete lessons using the Scope on a Rope handheld digital microscope, see the STR Teacher Resources page.
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