Spend a Day in a Spider's Shoes - USA Science and Engineering Festival

The video explores the behavior of social spiders, focusing on their challenges in detecting prey within colonies. Students are engaged in an empathy exercise where they simulate the limited vision of spiders by being blindfolded and placed in artificial webs. They attempt to detect prey using different types of silk, enhancing their understanding of spider behavior and sensory limitations.

What is a unique challenge faced by social spiders living in large colonies?

• Finding food in the dark

• Building their webs

• Identifying prey on their web

• Communicating with other spiders

Why are students blindfolded in the spider simulation exercise?

• To improve their hearing abilities

• To enhance their sense of touch

• To make the exercise more fun

• To mimic the limited vision of spiders

What is the purpose of using different types of silk in the experiment?

• To test the strength of the silk

• To measure the length of the silk

• To compare the colors of the silk

• To see if students can detect prey

How do students determine the location of prey in the experiment?

• By listening to sounds

• By feeling vibrations on the web

• By smelling the prey

• By observing the silk color

What happens if students become proficient at detecting prey?

• They are tested on spider anatomy

• They are asked to build a web

• The difficulty of the task is increased

• They are given a new type of silk