Click here for Bruchid Beetle protocol

"I never knew that bruchid beetles existed before!" recently exclaimed Scott Parham, a student in Mrs. Paula Beacom's seventh/eighth grade science class at Lowell Elementary School.

Last fall, Scott and his classmates spent a month conducting life-science research on the interactions between bruchid beetles and palo verde trees in their schoolyard. The project followed a protocol developed for the Ecology Explorer program sponsored by ASU's Center for Environmental Studies. Like all Ecology Explorer programs, the bruchid beetle protocol allows students to participate in the scientific process not just as classroom observers but as young scientists. Students develop their own hypotheses; collect, record and analyze their data; share results; and come to conclusions -- all of which are important skills for successful scientific inquiry.

And, as the students in Mrs. Beacom's class realized, sometimes a successful experiment is not one in which original assumptions are proved correct. "I think the most surprising thing (about the bruchid beetle study) was that our hypothesis was invalid," student Angie Alvarez said. The class had expected to find more holes in the pods with more seeds, but their data showed no correlation between these two factors. "When we were doing previous science projects we always got the right hypothesis," Angie said. The bruchid beetle project showed her that "being wrong is okay, I guess."

Other students also discovered that good science does not require a supported hypothesis. They found it comforting to hear Dr. Tim Craig, ASU professor and Ecology Explorer partner, say that his own hypotheses regarding bruchid beetles had been disproven. Dr. Craig reminded students that science involves continual questioning and reevaluation of people's ideas about the world.

Dr. Craig will use bruchid beetle data collected by Mrs. Beacom's class and other schools in the Valley in his own research. By comparing data for trees in the Phoenix metro area with data obtained from trees outside the city, Dr. Craig hopes to determine whether urban settings alter beetle-tree interactions.

Knowing that a professional scientist would use their data was an added incentive for students working on the bruchid beetle protocol. "The fact that we were doing it for other people's knowledge, not just our own, made us work harder," Scott said.

Mrs. Beacom agreed. "[Ecology Explorer work] was just different because it was real; it was more meaningful than [a science activity] ever was before."

Perhaps the greatest success of the bruchid beetle project has been the way it allows students to explore the scientific process and expand on their studies. Arlene Rubio has done just that. Having searched for bruchid beetles in palo verde pods, she said, "now you want to look at a flower or tree" and learn what ecological interactions are taking place.

Arlene reminds us that, for the students at Lowell Elementary and other Ecology Explorer schools, an innovative project about a beetle and a tree can foster new curiousity about the world, the kind of curiousity that lies at the heart of science.