When students think of biodiversity, they think of the
rainforest -- a far-off place that they will probably never see.
They do not see biodiversity around their school or in their own
backyard. Overlooking the local biodiversity is largely a matter
of not knowing where or for what to look. It is also a matter of
scale, for much of this diversity exists among small
invertebrates, especially the arthropods. This series of field
and laboratory activities allows teachers to demonstrate the
incredible amount of diversity that exists in a local area using
simple techniques that make observing biodiversity easy and
enjoyable. A goal of this approach is to make the topic of
biodiversity real and meaningful for the students, no matter
where they live. The activities that follow do not simply
demonstrate biodiversity in a single local area; rather, they
demonstrate biodiversity in and around one single tree. The
sampling techniques described allow students to observe
arthropod diversity in the lower canopy, on bark, o