Ecologist-in-residence at Sapphire Elem School

I've just spent the last three days as an ecologist-in-residence at the Sapphire Elementary School in Harriman, NY. We explored the school grounds learning to be ecologists. We focused on questions that helped us to understand the living things of the school yard environment including - Who is who? What they do? Where they go? How they grow? Culminating our exploration we looked at the leaf litter habitat at the edge of a forest. We had discussed that the habitat provides creatures with FOOD, WATER and HIDING PLACES. So we were excited to find various beetles, spiders, centipedes, millipedes, worms, slugs, ants and other insects. One of the most interesting finds was a caterpillar, which I had to research to find out what kind is was. Pictured here is the caterpillar which is a Giant Leopard Moth Hypercompe scribonia. I looked this up in Caterpillars of Eastern North America: A Guide to Identification and Natural History byDavid L. Wagner.