MB-OPS
(Merit Badge Opportunites)
Mark your calendars! And get busy with your cameras if you want to earn the Insect merit badge.
Crosswinds Narsh Wetland Interpretive Preserve (27600 Haggerty Rd, New Boston) is offering a class for the Insect Study merit badge on:
Saturday September 18 from 10 am to 3:30 pm
In order to earn that badge you need to make a photo scrapbook of 20 different insects that are native to Michigan (Emerald ash borer is not native to MI) from at least 4 different orders and bring it to the class. An "order" is a taxonomic classification used in biology. Classification of living things goes through different categories: Kingdom, Phyllum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and species.
For example, taxonomists classify insects this way:
Kingdom: Animal
Phyllum: Arthropoda (segmented external skeletons and appendages)
Class: Insecta (3 body segments - head, thorax, abdomen)
Some orders of insects include:
grasshoppers and crickets, praying mantis, walking stick
mayflies ("fish flies")
dragonflies
water bugs
spttlebugs, locusts, aphids
earwigs
scale
Beetles - e.g. lady bugs, fireflies, June bugs
moths and butterflies
Flies (includes mosquitoes)
Bees, wasps, ants
You need 20 pictures of different insects from at least 4 different orders listed above.
Do not take pictures of spiders. They are not insects. They only have 2 body parts.
Do not take pictures of centipedes or rolly pollies. They are not insects.
Mark your calendars for a Tracking Merit Badge class
Saturday, October 9th from 10 am to 3:30pm.
This is one of the Historic Merit Badges that is only being offered in 2010. This would be a great opportunity to earn the badge. All requirements for the badge will be completed that day.
The class is being offered by Crosswinds Marsh Wetland Interpretive Preserve in New Boston. More info later, but mark your calendars now!