What are you learning? How baby spiders use air currents to disperse.

The Experiment
1. Cut 18 pieces of thread, each about 6 inches long.
2. Glue three threads to each tissue bit. Fold the tissue over on itself and let the glue dry. Here are your six spiderlings.
3. Lay the spiderlings together on a table. Lean toward the table so that your mouth is close to but not touching the spiderlings. Blow hard!

The Aha! Effect Watch those baby spiders fly! Your breath gusted the spiderlings to new areas, some farther than others. When spiderlings hatch from their egg sacs, they move onto branches and other outdoor surfaces, where they release strands of silk from their bodies (remember CHARLOTTE'S WEB?). These strands and the attached spiderlings are lifted by the wind and dispersed. This innate behavior is called ballooning.

Go one step further. Create and cut out a spider from construction paper. Tape one end of a piece of thread to the spider and the other to a table edge. Knock the spider off the table. It's saved by the thread, or "drag line." In nature, the spider creates a drag line by attaching a strand of silk to what it's walking on. When it climbs up the line, it balls up the thread with its feet. Later, the spider often eats the line!

Adapted from JANICE VANCLEAVE'S PLAY AND FIND OUT ABOUT BUGS (John Wiley & Sons, 1999).