The Thinking Fountain's Spider Gliders inspired us to send spiders running up the side of our classroom wall. This activity gave the students a first hand simulation of how a spider uses its dragline to travel back and forth and to get out of harms way.
This mechanism also incited questions such as, "During a spiders life time about how much dragline can it make?" The students' answers varied between inches, feet, and miles. Another question that came up was, "Do the spider's spinnerets ever get clogged? And if so how does the spider gets them unclogged?" What do you think? Write to me.