Mapping Mosquitoes: Teaching Mosquito Ecology Through the Cartographic Arts

Abstract

Education is widely used in all areas of entomology to inform the public about arthropods that affect health, agriculture, forestry, and infrastructure. This is underscored by the recent creation of a pilot section for Formal and Informal Teaching (FIT) in the Entomological Society of America that is dedicated to promoting research and practice in entomology education. However, despite the importance of education to the reach and impact of entomology, there has been relatively little exploration of the field’s educational dimension. Many of us engage in innovative forms of education, but these efforts are often marginalized in how entomologists talk about their work. This is a map a child created about mosquitoes and their haunts. Representations of animals and humans were augmented with dots of red to illustrate them as sources of blood. The child wrote a commentary about their map: “Mosquitoes looked at the places where there was the most amount of blood. There was a lot in the places that had lots of animals like in the forest and houses.” What do you think this map can tell us about what this child understands about mosquitoes and their spatial ecology? In this article, we explore how artistic approaches to map-making might support children’s learning about insect ecology. Therefore, our goal with this article is to contribute to conversations in the field about formal and informal educational programming in entomology. We invite you to think alongside us about creative ways to support entomology interest, engagement, and learning. To do this, we share an example of an interdisciplinary educational outreach program that uses cartographic arts to teach children about mosquito ecology. We first describe the program’s design and rationale. We then take you on a gallery tour of entomological artwork children have created when participating in our program, with the aim of communicating the value and depth of scientific thought this artwork displays. The program we describe here is part of a larger educational research project spearheaded by Washington State University entitled Health Equity through Arts-Based Learning (HEAL). HEAL was funded by the National Institutes of Health through a Science Education Partnership Award (NIH SEPA). HEAL brought together an interdisciplinary team of entomologists, educational researchers, rural extension scholars, and artists to design, implement, and study arts-based science programming. HEAL curricula aim to support understanding of zoonotic disease systems while providing opportunities for children to explore possible futures in biomedical-related fields, including entomology. Impacts of HEAL programming on learning outcomes have been described in several published papers (Danielson et al. 2022, Grace et al. 2021a). Mapping Mosquitoes is the second iteration of a mosquito-focused curriculum designed through HEAL. We do not discuss assessment of learning outcomes here. Instead, we use Mapping Mosquitoes as an example of novel, arts-forward programming and explore the challenges and successes of such programming in engaging youth in entomology. Mapping Mosquitoes is an approximately 15-hour curriculum that leverages the cartographic arts to facilitate learning about mosquito ecology and vector control among elementary-aged children. Our use of art in Mapping Mosquitoes was informed by educational research demonstrating that integration of arts into science teaching can increase science interest, engagement, and learning (e.g., Ainsworth et al. 2011, McDougall et al. 2012, Peppler and Wohlwend 2017, Allina 2018, Decker et al. 2024). The curriculum also contributes to efforts by entomologists to use insects as tools for interdisciplinary STEM learning (Goldner et al. 2021). We draw upon entomologists’ love of the aesthetic beauty of insects and the natural world, well documented through the artistic expressions prevalent in hobbies (e.g., Bartlett 2023), personal adornment (Brosius 2023), literature (Lockwood 2021, Schwanitz 2022), picture postcards (Miller and Miller 2022), and fine crafts (Su 2022). In the educational program we describe here, we chose to use a visual art modality that is often overlooked in science education: the cartographic arts. We think of the cartographic arts as map-making, with two twists. The first twist is that there is an effort to incorporate artistic practices (e.g., working with imagination, metaphor, and experimental materials) while encouraging learners to be aesthetically and emotionally intentional in their creation of maps. The second twist comes from efforts by cartographic artists to deliberately expand what counts as a map, challenging the common assumption that maps are direct, neutral representations of real places. A cartographic artist might play with the visual language of maps to produce imaginary cityscapes or blend map-making practices with other disciplines. For example, cartographic artist Emily Garfield (https://www.emilygarfield.com), who advised the design of Mapping Mosquitoes, explores structural similarities between cities and biological cells through map-making. We focused our curriculum on mosquitoes because of their critical importance to human and animal health (WHO 2020) and the “shared experience” of mosquito bites that make these insects widely familiar. Globally, hundreds of millions of people suffer from mosquito-borne disease each year, with nearly one million people dying annually (WHO 2020). Our choice to focus on mosquito ecology was informed by the fact that our team works with predominantly Latino/a/x children from rural-agricultural communities in central Washington state. These communities are disproportionately affected by the mosquito-borne pathogen West Nile virus (Crowder et al. 2013, Washington State Department of Health 2023). IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM WE DESCRIBE HERE, WE CHOSE TO USE A VISUAL ART MODALITY THAT IS OFTEN OVERLOOKED IN SCIENCE EDUCATION: THE CARTOGRAPHIC ARTS In designing Mapping Mosquitoes, we were inspired by the possibility that cartographic arts could engage children in learning about the spatial dimensions of mosquito ecology. In the curriculum, learners engaged in a wide range of map-making activities to explore how various components of mosquito habitat might be distributed across a landscape. Through map making, participants made sense of how a mosquito moves through a landscape during various stages of its life cycle and explored the consequences of landscape modification for mosquito populations and their spatial distribution. We consider knowledge of mosquito ecology to be a crucial part of being able to prevent mosquito bites and mosquito-borne disease on global, local, and individual levels. We developed Mapping Mosquitoes as an interdisciplinary team of two entomologists, two educational researchers, and a cartographic artist. Our experience has been that interdisciplinary co-design of arts-based science programs allows for richer explorations of cross-disciplinary connections while avoiding an oversimplification of arts disciplines that renders them simply “in service” of science instruction (Marshall 2014). With each activity, we worked to identify both science and arts learning objectives, drawing on the collective expertise of our interdisciplinary design team that has contributed to participatory co-design research (Grace et al. 2021b, Grace et al. 2022), and cartographic art experiences in informal settings (Pautzke et al. 2022, Saba Fisher et al. 2022a, Saba Fisher et al. 2022b, Saba Fisher et al. 2024). The Mapping Mosquitoes curriculum consists of three units (Fig. 1). The first two units focus on key components of mosquito habitat, while the third focuses on mosquito-borne illness risk and prevention. In the first unit, we introduce children to blood as a key resource in mosquito habitat. We explore scientific inquiry questions about why mosquitoes bite animals and where they can find blood in a landscape. We also prompt students to think expansively about what counts as a map. In the second unit, we focus on water and wind as important components of mosquito habitat. We discuss how mosquitoes need water in which to lay eggs, and how wind currents shape how mosquitoes move through the world in search of hosts and floral resources. We explore how maps might represent the movement of wind and water in three-dimensional space. The third unit turns attention to risk and prevention of mosquito bites and mosquito-borne illness. Children create maps of imagined landscapes that attempt to minimize the risk mosquitoes pose to humans. A map of Mapping Mosquitoes with guiding essential questions and sample artwork from participating children. We end the program with a capstone scientific art show in which youth display their creations and share their knowledge with family and friends. We find that this can provide a motivating end point for the program. The art show also functions to position youth as emerging scientific experts and communicators, fostering a sense of identity and ownership. We implemented Mapping Mosquitoes in a summer camp program located in central Washington with third- to fifth-grade participants (ages 8–11). We now take you on a gallery tour featuring a small sample of the hundreds of pieces of entomological artwork created by our participants. Throughout the tour, we invite you to consider the aesthetic and scientific value of the work produced by these young artist-scientists, to reflect on the connection between children’s art and entomological understandings, and to cultivate your own curiosity about how this work might inspire your own. For each activity, we (a) describe the activity and its rationale, (b) share examples of student artwork, and (c) offer educational insights and possibilities for future modifications. The first unit of Mapping Mosquitoes begins with instruction about why mosquitoes bite us (and other animals): female mosquitoes use nutrients from animal blood to develop their eggs. We brainstorm with learners to identify different animals a mosquito might bite for blood and the animals in our neighborhoods that might be bitten. Each learner identifies at least three different creatures and uses these to practice making symbols and a map legend. Some of the symbols include dogs, pigs, cats, birds, monsters, humans, and other creatures (Fig. 2). Learners then add these symbols to a premade map of an imagined landscape that has waterways, agricultural land, human housing, and vegetation. Symbols for blood maps, which include dogs, pigs, cats, birds, monsters, humans, and other creatures. We then ask learners to imagine becoming a mosquito on the hunt for blood. This prompt aims to support a perspective switch in which learners consider what we can notice and learn about the world when we center on the lives of species other than our own. At this point, we place a clear plastic sheet over the maps so that learners can add another layer to them. Learners then apply red paint to the plastic layer to “communicate to a mosquito” where it might find blood in the map they have drawn. What results is a “blood map” that communicates learners’ evolving understandings of mosquito spatial ecology (Figs. 3 and 4). By using the plastic sheet, learners can consider the two map layers both together and separately, which allows for a juxtaposition between traditional, representational maps (the drawn layer) and relatively more abstract maps (the painted layer when viewed without the underlying drawing). A participant’s blood map. As you look at this map, what do you notice? What do you wonder? A participant’s blood map. If you were a mosquito, what would it be like to navigate using this map as a guide? The blood maps ended up showcasing a wide range of detail and specificity. Some learners chose to draw more straightforward symbols that took a shorter amount of time to replicate, filling the map to the brim with life. Others paid very close attention to one symbol, resulting in maps with fewer but relatively more detailed symbols. In Fig. 3, you can see that the artist created some very detailed symbols, such as the large eagle near the top of the map, the dog barking on the right, and the pig drinking from the lake on the bottom left. When it came to applying the red blood paint layer, some learners used a small, precise application method so that the mosquito had a very specific map to use. The artist of Fig. 3 used this precise method and, by doing so, allowed their drawings to still be seen under the paint. Others went wild with the paint, covering large swathes with red (Fig. 4). Two key insights emerge when we analyze student engagement in the blood map activity. First, students expressed mixed emotions about mosquitoes and the prompt to “help” them find blood. Some students expressed enthusiasm and empathy for helping mosquitoes accomplish the important task of making offspring. Other students communicated resistance to the prompt because they did not want animals to be harmed. For example, some learners intentionally placed paint in areas where there were no animals, to “trick” the mosquito and protect other animals. In this case, learners engaged in deep sensemaking about mosquito spatial ecology to pursue what they saw as a more ethical outcome. Inspired by this, we conjecture that emotional ambivalence toward insects like mosquitoes can be an opportunity to engage children with ecological and ethical complexity. A possible future modification to explore this could be having learners add animals that are predators of mosquitoes and create a third layer of the map with a different paint color to warn mosquitoes where to stay away. A second overarching observation we have made about the blood maps is that children tended to emphasize familiar, everyday species such as common birds, dogs, cats, and livestock. Thus, while we see evidence in the maps that children understand the importance of the spatial arrangement of animals, we did less to support their exploration of the diversity across animals and variation in host quality. We wonder how the symbol making would have turned out if we had learners work from an understanding that not all hosts are the same quality to a mosquito. Water and wind are both important parts of a mosquito’s life. They also represent a challenging aspect of map-making: conveying movement. Adult mosquitoes search their habitat to find water in which to lay eggs, and the availability of water varies with landscape and weather. Additionally, because adult mosquitoes use chemosensory cues (smells) to navigate their world, wind currents influence their ability to move around and sense the environment. We engage children with this idea by explaining that mosquitoes use the smell of an animal’s breath in the wind to locate opportunities to bite for blood. The purpose of the “crumple map” is to explore how water and wind move, as well as how we might map those movements. First, learners crumple a sheet of paper to create a page with a dynamic topography evocative of a landscape’s hills and valleys. The learners then place colored water droplets onto the pages, tilting and stretching the papers and blowing on the droplets to scatter them around the page. The resulting watercolor paintings are maps of where the water and air went. Throughout this activity, we prompt discussion about how water moves on a landscape and how this might affect where mosquitoes go. For example, we ask participants: If you were a mosquito looking for a spot to lay eggs, where would you go based on your map? We discuss how the maps not only represent movement but, in fact, are made from movement as they are produced through movements of water, air, and hands. This enables further ongoing explorations of maps that go beyond what we typically think of when we think of a map. The lessons from this activity are further cemented with the accompaniment of a nature walk, during which learners are given the experience of observing the topography of their environment. With a specific eye towards where water is or might flow in a familiar space, learners are able to think about and visualize how small differences in their immediate landscape can affect large systems like mosquito abundance. Fig. 5 is an example of one of the crumple maps. Some areas of the map are left blank, such as the top left corner of the map, indicating that the artist decided not to (or could not) apply color there, despite there being available space. What emerges is a landscape that contains both wet and arid with for mosquitoes looking to lay eggs. A participant’s crumple map. insights from this activity are to the and challenges with arts First, while the crumple maps were ways to represent water, and they were also very to As more water was to the some of the out and the papers Fig. We different this activity challenging to the nature of the maps. Some learners when they could not the water to go where they We that of and are to the learning and can offer opportunities to learn about insect habitat and the environment. 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