Well, it has finally been decided that my experiment with the Praying Mantis egg sac has failed. We didn’t get any Praying Mantids running around and I think the kids were a little disappointed. I mean, this has been an ongoing project for over 6 months.
Still, even with the failure of the experiment, there are many new things where I can go from here. The egg sac can be handled, pictures can be drawn of it and rubbings can be taken from it. We can discuss reasons why it failed and what are some things that we could have done to prevent the failure.
This is an excellent opportunity for any parent. If an experiment, project or a recipe fails, don’t feel that the learning experience ends. Simply shift it and allow the learning to take a new direction. Sure you aren’t left with the expected result but you may find something even more amazing than you originally imagined.
Not only that, but you also show your children to not give up, even if something doesn’t go right. You teach them that things happen and there is no reason to get overly upset if it doesn’t work but to think “outside the box” and figure out new ways to make it work.
In my case, there really is no way to make it right and after a few more weeks, we are going to be dissecting the egg sac to see what went on inside. Maybe we won’t find anything but we just might. I’ve decided to give it a few weeks, just in case I didn’t give it enough time, I would feel really guilty if I destroyed the egg sac when there was still life to it.
Next time, if there is one, I think I will put the egg sac outside in the garden and let mother nature take care of it. So, it is pretty obvious that we won’t be seeing this (a video of Praying Mantids hatching, actually this is an excellent video and covers the life cycle of a Praying Mantid) but we have a whole new angle of learning to explore.
Sirena Van Schaik
