PHOTO: VON.GRZANKA
Now that the grey, drizzly weather is setting in, snails are crawling out everywhere. This is the perfect moment for a biological investigation into their character! In this lesson, pupils strengthen their research skills by investigating whether garden snails, like humans and great tits, have distinct personalities. Using the lesson plan from Veldwerkindestad.nl, they carry out a simple experiment. Pupils collect garden snails from different habitats (urban and rural) and gently stimulate them with a paintbrush. They then measure how long it takes for the snail to emerge from its shell again, repeating this several times. Afterwards, they analyse the results: do ‘bold’ and ‘cautious’ snails really exist?
This lesson connects with the themes of behaviour, ecology and classification, and encourages curiosity, precision and critical thinking – exactly what a good researcher needs. The lesson is available at tinyurl.com/bdh2re5v. (Milena Vlot)