The flight of the butterflies
Characters:
Theme: Animals
Competencies
Competence in Linguistic Communication
Mathematical competence in science, technology and engineering
Subjects and year by Educational System
Spain > Biology and geology > 1st ESO > Living beings
Spain > Biology and geology > 3rd ESO > Living beings
Enunciation
1- Look at illustrations 1 and 2 by Maria Sibylla Merian.
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| Figure 1 | Figure 2 |
2- Describe what you see in each one.
3- Explain why arthropods moult during the development of the individual.
4- Activity: Raise silkworms (Bombyx mori) that you can get from a friend. You will need mulberry leaves to feed them. Observe, draw and photograph each of the stages of the metamorphosis of this insect.
Observations and context
Her daughters Johanna Helena Herolt and Dorothea Maria Graff, whom she taught, were also botanical illustrators like herself. She also worked for Agnes Block, a well-known art collector and horticulturist. Her contemporaries were the astronomers Maria Cunitz and Mary Winckelmann-Kirch. Slightly earlier were Martine Bertereau, a mining engineer and mineralogist, and the renowned Maltese pharmacist Caterina Vitale, who worked as such for the Order of the Knights Hospitaller.
She worked mainly in Amsterdam and St. Petersburg.
Video with drawings and illustrations by Maria Sibylla Merian.
Description
Activity with two parts: in the first part, interpretation is proposed to relate Maria Sibylla Merian's drawings to the process of butterfly metamorphosis. In the second part, it is proposed to repeat the observations on live metamorphosis in order to observe them directly.