TEACHERS

Pick up some moss or scrape a lichen from a tree. Soak it in a dish. Look at it under a scope. A whole micro-ecosystem is there. Try it and you'll be ready when a student asks for an idea for a unique science project or wants to learn about something different. Add tardigrades to your classes by developing a simple project that can be repeated annually.

Tardigrades offer low cost, visible results, and great biology questions. In addition, you teach sampling, field work, lab preparation, observation, measurement, identification, literature, and writing. And maybe the adventure of finding something new, the reward for wrestling with Tardigrades: Bears of the Moss.