Activity: Where in the World?

Hands-on Exercise: To Find Where Fire Ants Occur

Materials

Colored pencils, crayons or markers

Maps of the United States and South America

Instructions

Find information about the locations of current and future fire ant infestations (hint: try Geographic Distribution of Fire Ants).

Take a map of the United States and color in red the areas where fire ants are found. Color in blue the areas where it is probably too cold for fire ants to survive.

Also color in the areas of the South America map where the red imported fire ants originated.

Wrap-up

• Have you ever lived in a state without ants?
• Imported fire ants are not the only organisms that were intoduced by accident. Can you think of any other pests that were introduced?