Max Melcher, a 7B, crashed Jeff's Science 8B with the offering of a butterfly on a cluster of leaves. Several girls leaned back skeptically, making way for Max to bear his offering to Jeff. The butterfly was very still. "Is it dead?" "Why isn't it moving?"
"No, it's just cold," answered Jeff. And sure enough, when he set the butterfly in his warm palm, its wings began slowly to rise and fall. Within a minute, the bug was flying about the room. So the conversation turned to what kind of butterfly it was. While Jeff couldn't tell the species, he knew it was a male. Males have very feathery antenna, he says, so that they can detect the scent of the female. Females, on the other hand, have slender antenna with a knob at the end for emitting their scent.
Jeff opened the window, caught the butterfly in his cupped hands, and set it off to pursue its courtship. Not so for the eighth graders, who went back to their investigation of what constitutes a living thing.
So where's the photo? I'm working on my camera skills.
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