Subject: Re: A 1st Grade Homework assignment

From: Andy McClelland <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 29 Apr 1995 12:15:18 -0700

This sort of response may well turn off the child's interest.  Are we all
so busy (OK I'm retired, but still teaching and busy) that we cannot
tolerate such a request. 10 seconds is all it takes to delete the message
if you don't care to respond.  Terry McGlynn spent as much time protesting
the question as he could have in answering the request.

It is, however, probably appropriate to direct the answer directly to the
student rather than to the whole newsgroup, unless it is of wide interest.

Furthermore the question Donna asks is deceptively simple, but I challenge
any child or even teacher to go to the library and find the answer.
Butterfly resting behavior is probably addressed _somewhere_ in books, but
I doubt it is easy to find.  "Going to a library could easily answer this
question" just isn't the case even at a university library with a large
insect section.  Your average county library is woefully inadequate.

If we want to maintain a body of young people interested in insects, to
fuel our ranks in the future we should be generous in our help.  When I
have made a presentation on insects to a school class in the grades K-6 I
am always impressed by their questions.  Naive minds often ask questions
that are hard to answer.

>Donna Mallery  <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>I am Stephanie. I want to know where a butterfly goes when it rains.
>>Thank you.
>
>I don't think this is an appropriate question for this newsgroup.  As
>the net grows, there will be tons of people asking for help in schoolwork
>and other academic pursuits that can easily answered without soliciting
>help from this forum.  I think it robs people of the ability to learn how
>to acquire information.  Going to a library could easily answer this question.
>
>If the teacher or the parent of the student posted this, they could go
>to the library with the student, look up books on butterflies-- and
>show the student how to learn new things on her own, in addition to the
>answer of her question.
>
>Sorry if this sound mean or harsh-- just my opinion and nobody else's.
>
>Terry P. McGlynn         University of Colorado at Boulder
>EPO Biology - CB 334     Environmental, Population, and Organismic Biology
>Boulder, CO  80309-0334  [email-masked]
>http://ucsub.colorado.EDU/~mcglynn/Home.html
>--

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From: [email-masked] (Dr Don Ewart)
Date: Thu, 4 May 1995 13:31:15

In article <[email-masked]> Andy McClelland <[email-masked]> writes:
>Date: Sat, 29 Apr 1995 12:15:18 -0700
>From: Andy McClelland <[email-masked]>
>Subject: Re: A 1st Grade Homework assignment

>the question as he could have in answering the request.. . . 

Nice reply Andy, but where do they go?  Do all lepidoptera respond in the same 
manner?  What is the level at which the response is evoked?  What sort of 
precipitation impact can these scaly wings endure?

There is more to the child's queation than first thought!

Cheers

Don
.
Dr Don Ewart                            [email-masked]
Granitgard Pty Ltd/CSIRO Div. Forest Products
Mail: Priv. Bag 10 Rosebank MDC, Clayton VIC 3169, Australia
Tel: +613 542 2271  Fax: +613 543 6613
URL: http://www-bprc.mps.ohio-state.edu/cgi-bin/hpp?Termite.html
.