For artistic students, instruct them to create a bald-faced hornet model that depicts all of the physical aspects of the insect. Use clay, paper mache or other molding material to build the black and white body. Use gray tissue paper and wire for the wings and antennae. While this project might seem too difficult, the child learns about the separate body sections -- the head, thorax and abdomen -- and their functions. Include a speech about the various functions of each part of the yellow jacket.
The bald-faced hornet has a distinct nesting cycle. It begins with a single queen, who builds a few cells of the nest. Into the cell, the queen deposits larvae, which hatch and take over the nest duties, while the queen focuses solely on producing more young. As these young hatch throughout the year, the nest becomes larger and larger, eventually reaching apex at the end of summer. At this point, all of the yellow jackets die except for a few mated females, which survive over the winter and start nests of their own, abandoning the old nest. Instruct your fourth-grader to draw a diagram of the life cycle of the yellow jacket nest.
While the sting of a bald-faced hornet can be quite painful, the insect also serves a purpose to humans, ridding gardens of many types of pests. Instruct your fourth-grader to complete a chart that contrasts the pestlike aspects of the insect with the helper aspects. Ensure that the child includes information on the yellow jacket's role in pollination and predation. At the end of the project, discuss whether the insect does more positive or negative for humankind. If your children decide that the bald-faced hornet provides more positive than negative, discuss ways of preventing stings without killing the yellow jacket nest.
Bald-faced hornets play an important role in the Southern United States. While they feed upon certain bugs and pollinate flowers, other animals feed on them for sustenance. Instruct your fourth-grader to create a "cycle of life" chart, which shows all of the connections between bald-faced hornets and other animals, with plants and with humans. At the end of the project, encourage the child to look at the changes in environment that would occur if the bald-faced hornet suddenly disappeared. For example, would raccoons begin to feed more on other insects and on human waste, causing more problems? Would there be an abundance of cabbage worms, which destroy gardens?