Mosquitoes in Your Backyard

Diversity, life cycles and management of backyard mosquitoes

The goal of this lesson is to use a familiar organism in our backyards, the mosquito, to introduce students to the insect life cycle that includes both an aquatic and terrestrial stages and compare and identify common mosquitoes in our backyard. In addition, it will provide students with the background to discuss why and how we control mosquitoes at the egglaying, larval, and flying stages. An extended component can be included that discuss the diseases the mosquitoes carry. In this case we developed a malaria example (likely more appropriate for the 8th grade level, see 8th grade lesson plan) and how those diseases are transmitted. This would expand this lesson plan from the local mosquitoes and disease they may carry to global movement of disease. We are currently developing a high school lesson plan that involves treehole mosquito ecology and teaches the scientific process.