When “Mantis-Sensei”, who was green with a full body mask and jersey, appeared on the elementary school stage, the third graders stared with interest. Former Junior High School Director Mitsuharu Okuma (74) = Caso City = Who is Mantis? Since 2009 he has been teaching ministers at a primary school in the city.

In class, we will first introduce the life of a manti using a hand-made picture-story exhibition. Third grade is just one grade for studying insects in a science class. We mainly learn about cabbage white butterflies, but unlike butterflies that mature from larvae through pupae, mantises tend to mature without pupae. To let people know that the same insects are different, the content expands on “Is a beetle a pupa ?, a dragonfly? A firefly?”

The reason I wear an influential mask is because “I want to impress kids.” As intended, this form and the easy-to-understand picture-story display are a huge success. Understands the interests of the children at once and asks questions one after the other.

At the elementary school where I went to class, I would run the “Children’s Mobile Insectarium” for about a month. Insect-focused specimens collected after Mr. Okuma became a science teacher 50 years ago are on display. There are a total of 92 species of insects in various subjects and grade textbooks such as “Red Dragonfly” music and science.

A few years after retiring, I started organizing models because I wanted kids who had little experience in seeing insects to get acquainted with them. Except for those in poor condition, each was given a name tag and completed by dividing them into insects to be studied for each grade. Children look at patterns in class and at intervals to learn about the size, color, and shape of insects.

Mr. Okuma, who has been involved in education for many years, has a sense of crisis that “children do not have the opportunity to be impressed and amazed when they see real insects”. The theory is that it is important to experience nature until the age of ten, when the brain is full of curiosity for development. While in elementary school, Okkuma had the experience of building a pond about 50 cm wide in his garden and releasing captured crayfish, crayfish and loach.

When they start to catch insects, they show a fighting attitude to defend themselves, try to escape, and show different behaviors. Observing such reactions stimulates curiosity, arouses interest in other organisms, and enhances learning. I want kids to grow up under the mask of Mandis.

“Humans and insects come together to create nature. I want you to become more familiar with insects.” With that in mind I will continue to teach. (Yasuhiro Teramoto)

<ഒകുമ മിത്സുഹരു> Born in 1947 in Caso City. After graduating from the Faculty of Education, he worked as a science teacher at Saitama University, a junior high school in Prefecture. He has also been involved in research on aquatic life for many years. He is the director of the Children’s Mobile Insectarium, which will be open in the summer in a hut next to the moving sidewalk “Skylator” in Yemenouchi Town, Nagano Prefecture. Sow birth.