When I was a kid, playing outside or going for a hike always involved a bit of a treasure hunt. I had a rock collection, a shell collection, and random bits of “nature.” I briefly had “pet” frogs, fireflies, lizards, and fiddler crabs. I once found a cow skeleton and made my dad help me take the skull home. But from an early age, worms were special, partly because they were such a reliable find. If I wanted something new and cool to look at, I could always find a worm.

Later, as a high school biology teacher, I started the first day of school each year by setting a worm in front of every student in my classes. Some of them squealed. Others were entranced. But very few of them had ever taken the time to look closely at a worm. By the end of the class period, even the most hesitant students would be engaged. And the worms were such excellent teaching tools! We talked about care for living things, how all organisms need to sense the world around them, how a worm’s body parts are just the right fit for where it lives, and how its behavior is adaptive for its environment.

More recently, I’ve used worms across ages. I’ve handed them out to first graders and plopped them in front of librarians (more squealing than the first graders!). I’ve done worm talks with middle schoolers, teachers, and community members. Their abundance makes them a perfect teaching tool—a real, live treasure that anyone can find.

I’ve tried to capture the excitement of discovery in This is a Book to Read with a Worm. The reader is invited to find a worm friend and go page by page through the book together, doing many of the activities I have used with learners through the years. The activities include things to observe, simple interactions, and short experiments that use household items, all that illustrates something of the science of this remarkable creature. All of the activities are safe for the worm, so that you can send it wriggling back home when you have finished.

I hope that this book will give kids who love worm hunting the opportunity to really understand the treasures they find. And I hope it will inspire kids who are less eager to grab a worm and become more comfortable with the nature around them. But mostly, I want this book to be fun!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jodi Wheeler-Toppen is a science teacher and science writer with a passion for helping young people become confident science readers and writers. Her many books for curious kids include Cat Science Unleashed, Dog Science Unleashed, Edible Science, Recycled Science, and the Our Amazing Senses series.

She holds a Ph.D. in Science Education from the University of Georgia, where her dissertation addressed integrating literacy and science instruction. When she's not writing or doing author visits, she conducts staff development for teachers.

Her book, This is A Book to Read with a Worm, was the winner for the 2021 AAAS/Subaru Book Prize in the Hands-on Science Book category.

GOING FURTHER

• Book/Author Resources

  • Read more about Jodi on her website or follow her on social media Facebook @JodiWheelerToppen & Twitter @WheelerToppen. She also has recorded several simple experiments found on her YouTube site!

  • Use this video trailer for an overview of her 2021 AAAS/Subaru Prize Book, This is a Book to Read with a Worm. Perhaps you can get some new ideas for how you might like to learn with a worm.

  • In order to read this book, you will need a worm. In this video, Jodi introduces us to a fun and humane worm experiment you can do in your backyard or nearby park while using her book, This is a Book to Read with a Worm.

• Worms/Earth Worms

  • National Geographic created a general informational page to learn about the “Common Earthworm”, https://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/earthworm/. If you would like more details, you can also use the Earthworms from Penn State Extension.

  • Use this website, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS Soils), to guide you on how to successfully raise your own earthworms.

  • Ever wonder what those earthworms are up to in the ground? Learn why worms are wonderful with SciShow Kids.

  • Use this Biology lab to examine an earthworm. After studying its external anatomy, you will dissect the earthworm to explore its internal anatomy to discover that this seemingly simple animal has amazingly complex anatomy!

• Citizen Science

  • Earthworms were some of the first soil animals to be studied by early scientists and they continue to be studied by scientists today, with the help of farmers, gardeners, students, and many others. Frontiers for Young Minds outlines everything you need to know for “Learning More About Earthworms With Citizen Science.”

  • Earthworms are not native to the Great Lakes Region; they were all wiped out after the last glaciation. The current population, brought here by early Europeans, is slowly changing the face of our native forests, but very little is known about the distributions of earthworms across the region. SciStarter’s The Great Lakes Worm Watch needs citizen (community) scientists to conduct earthworm surveys in forests and other habitats anywhere in North America.

  • If you are based in the UK, check out the Earthworm Watch project. It is a citizen (community) science project to improve knowledge of how humans affect earthworms and soil health in the UK. Data collection is closed, for the time being, so be sure to check out their website for results!