Ace's Meal Worm Science Project

The other day, I looked out of the window and saw Ace walking home.

He seemed to be looking down at something... I thought he was looking at his and so I messaged him and asked him to stop looking down at his phone...

His reply....

I was like.. duh.. what sort of reply is that... I couldn't really tell what this is lor..


When I picked him up, I was a little surprised when he showed me this cup of worms he had in his hands..

Apparently, they are doing study of the life cycle of animals now and they formed some groups and were given these to observe. Ace said that he is leader of his group and so he volunteered to bring these worms home first. Each person can bring it home for  days.

I asked Ace if he knew what these worms ate and he said can eat biscuits.. and also fruits and vegetables...

Later while making dinner, I plucked out the yellowed veggies I did not want and fed them to the worms...

At the start, the worms were really happy.. one of the worms even ate and pooped at the same time! Wahahahaha...

But half an hour later, Ace suddenly exclaimed that the worms were not moving!

He quickly went to gohonzon and started chanting for the worms... i also tried to wand them...

We prayed hard that they were just sleeping and Ace started to cry. I told him not to cry.. just wait and see lah..

Later in the night, we realized that the worms are confirm dead and Ace was really sad since it was the first day he brought this back and his classmates did not have their turn yet..

The next day, Ace came home a little more light hearted as his worms were not the only ones who died... one died because it was dropped from a high height.. one died because it could not withstand cold temperature in an aircon room.

Initially Ace said he is not going to replace the worms because all his friends said since die liao.. then forget it lah..

Later though, I had a discussion with him. I told him that I felt that as leader of the group, it will be good if he can ensure his group gets a chance to observe the life cycle of a meal worm and we decided in the end that we will buy some meal worms..

The following weekend, we went to the market to search for meal worms but all the bird shop and pet shop uncles told us that the meal worms were not here yet. They only have the SUPERWORMS which are gigantic meal worms...

We went to eat lunch and went back to ask again but still, the worms were not here. Besides, the uncle told us they dun sell looose worms and so it seems that we might have to buy a whole bunch of yucky worms...

So we decided to go to Bedok Reservior to try our luck as we remembered there was a bird shop there.

I went to the bird shop and asked the Uncle if he can sell us only a few worms because Ace needed it for school project as those that he brought home died after we fed it leaves.

Uncle told us that meal worms can survive just on bread.. dun need to put anything else inside one..

And then, he paused for a second and told us, "Since it is for school project.. uncle give to you free..."

Then another uncle scooped up some meal worm pupa and said.. "You know these will become the black gu one..."

"Yeah, they are suppose to grow them into the gu.." I told the Uncle.

"Oh, then take these as well..." And the second uncle added some pupa to the worms they gave us...

Ace making holes at the top for the worms to breathe..

This time round, we clever liao.. just put bread.. Can you see the white white fat fat ones? Those are the pupa...

Ace told me his teacher said it is better to use aluminium foil for the cover. I presume it is to keep the cup dark as the worms do not really light it to be bright and sunny...

THen Ace came up with the idea to recycle those new year goodies container and drill some holes at the top. Max helped him drill and then we transfered the worms in and the worms seem happy to live there:)

Anyway, i found out that it was lucky we did not buy the superworms as those worms are injected with something to make them grow super big.. but they will never become mealworm beetes..

Ace was quite fascinated with the worms.. after he finish homework, he will stare into the container and watch the worms wiggle and then exclaim, "Mummy.. a worm jumped... " , "Mummy, see, this one is dancing!!"

All this excitement gave Max another idea..

As there are alot of spiders in the house, Max used a container and caught one spider. We thought we can let Ace bring to school as well. Max asked Ace to get a leaf to put in the container and we thought the spider might be hungry and even caught two bugs and put into the container..

Ace happily brought the spider to school but somehow, they spider died when he was in school.. I dunno what happened.. Ace brought the spider back again and we realized that before the spider died, it actually built a web for one of the bugs which is dead.. and while the spider is dead, the other bug is still alive.. hahaha:)

After this, the children were all excited about catching and bringing all sorts of stuff and Ace said someone even brought a frog:)

PS:
Ace said that two of the pupas became mealworm beetles and so his team will receive a prize from his science teacher.. He received a green pen from his teacher which he told me is "diamond pen".. hahaha.. cos at the tip of the pen cap, there is a crystal.. As Ace is very fascinated with shiny stuff.. he very baobei the pen lor:)

Since I cannot see how the beetle looks like.. I googled... This is how it looks like in various stages of colours till it becomes black..


Wah lau.. is just the GU tat we see flying around every now and then lah.. wahahaha :)