Session 2009-001 with poff elementary

Application

The School

The Class

The Project

Miscellaneous

Live Session Transcript

Connected on 2009-02-12 10:00:00 from , PA, US

• 9:31am
• Bugscope Team Good morning!
• Bugscope Team I am working on presets for today's session.
• Guest Good Morning!

• 9:37am

• Bugscope Team Please let me know if you have questions. I will watch for them.
• 9:43am

• Guest Thanks. We are a class of Gifted Children. Wanting to see if it is something that interests them. So far they all seem excited and in awe!
• Teacher Good Morning
• Bugscope Team Good morning, Mrs Prosser!

• Bugscope Team Mrs Prosser are we working with you at 11 your time?
• Guest Thank you for letting use watch "over your shoulder"!
• Teacher At first I thought it was 12:00 my time so I arranged everything for that time
• Teacher but, if we cannot do that then I will gather my students for the 11:00 time
• Bugscope Team However you would like. Noon your time is fine.
• Teacher great, that would be better for us
• Bugscope Team I am getting started a little early.

• Teacher I will see you at 11:50 with my students
• Bugscope Team Great! Thank You!
• Teacher Pearl River, Where are you located
• 9:48am
• Teacher Poff School- Hampton Township- Allinson Park
• Guest We are located in Pearl River County, McNeill, Mississippi. Where are you located?
• Teacher Pennsylvania

• Guest What grade are you teaching?
• Guest I teach 4th and 5th grade Intellectually GIfted children.

• 9:54am

• 10:00am

• 10:07am
• Teacher when we log on att 12:00 are you going to describe to our students what they are seeing
• Bugscope Team Yes and I will have some help as well.
• Bugscope Team Will the students be logged onto their own computers, or sharing computers?
• Bugscope Team Mrs Prosser I would like to invite Pearl River to drive a bit if it is alright with you, before your session.
• Bugscope Team I have the presets done, at least for now.
• Bugscope Team Pearl River Central I have given you control of the microscope if you would like to test drive for 10-15 minutes.
• 10:20am

• Bugscope Team bee right back
• Bugscope Team haha bee funny :p

• Guest We BEE appreciative!

• Bugscope Team this is the edge of the sample stub. to the right you can see a screw for the stage in the microscope

• 10:25am
• Bugscope Team sorry I missed your starting up
• Guest This takes a minute to get used to moving it..lol

• Bugscope Team let us know if/when you have questions about driving, or about the critters
• Bugscope Team these are almost all from someone's collection, so they have pinholes in the thoraces
• Bugscope Team we've been avoiding the ones that are glued to tabs
• Guest AH. I was wondering what that was...

• Bugscope Team this is a small parasitic wasp, of which there are prob'ly hundreds of species

• Bugscope Team they lay their eggs in caterpillars

• Bugscope Team if you click to drive it is important to click to stop

• Guest It wasnt moving..must be something with my computer
• Bugscope Team or else you go off the edge of the world

• Bugscope Team you can use click to center

• Bugscope Team you may click on a preset to have the microscope drive itself to that position

• 10:30am
• Guest now it moved...must be alot of traffic on my end.

• Bugscope Team PRC you are the only person driving; no one else has the ability to control except Cate and me.
• Bugscope Team you should be able to scroll through the presets and find something interesting
• Bugscope Team you can see a smooshed ant to the NW

• Bugscope Team anyway let us know if you have any trouble, any questions
• Guest Thanks

• Bugscope Team this is a click beetle
• Guest This is soo NEAT
• Bugscope Team we are glad you like it
• Bugscope Team one of those black beetles that can snap its whole body to wake you up if you happen to be sitting on it, as happened to me once
• Bugscope Team cool antenna
• Bugscope Team you can take the mag down to see where you are
• Bugscope Team if you want

• Bugscope Team yay
• Guest WOW

• Bugscope Team now you can see the jointed body, where the click is
• Bugscope Team the clicker
• 10:35am

• Bugscope Team good thing they snap instead of biting

• Guest WOW that hole is cool. That is so wild how you can SEE everything.

• Bugscope Team abdomen, now
• Bugscope Team with lots of tiny setae on it
• Guest I was wondering what u call those.

• Bugscope Team they're hairs but we can't call them that since they're not, you know, mammals
• Guest That is TOO neat
• Bugscope Team they can also be spines, trichae, microtrichae, microsetae
• Bugscope Team yup setae are basically just hairs on insects that lets them know whats going on around them
• Bugscope Team depending on the size and where they are
• Bugscope Team like for touch, taste/smell
• Bugscope Team yes as Cate says...
• Guest I am glad humans do smell or taste everything they touch! EEW
• 10:40am
• Bugscope Team if you were an insect you might be able to smell with your fingers
• Bugscope Team and think if you had compound eyes
• Bugscope Team some insects can see in the UV as well

• Bugscope Team scott always jokes about how he is happy that spiderman isnt really like a spider

• Bugscope Team Yeah. Imagine if he had spinnerets. He would be unlikely get dates with appendages like that.

• Bugscope Team unlikely to get dates...
• Bugscope Team this is cool
• Bugscope Team these are sensilla on an antenna
• Guest Hey you need a shave...your hands!

• Bugscope Team antennae are super important to sensing the Outer World, as in detecting pheromones.

• Bugscope Team now you see the eye, as well

• 10:45am
• Guest Science ROCKS!

• Bugscope Team oops head fell off this morning
• Teacher we will all be here in 5 minutes
• Guest I hate it when my head falls off

• Bugscope Team Okay Mrs Prosser we will let you have control.

• Guest Thanks for the reigns! It was FUN! My kids are LOVING IT!
• Bugscope Team thanks for joining us today and trying it out
• Bugscope Team Pearl River Thank You!
• Guest Now that I have gotten the ahng of it. I will DEF fill in the application to do this. Thank YOU
• Bugscope Team Great! We look forward to seeing you again. If you have time you can collect some bugs and send them, to look at.
• 10:51am
• Guest That sounds GREAT!
• Bugscope Team small bugs are best, since the stage is only 50 mm in diameter, and earwigs are one of my favorites. 'Cause they often have mites.
• Guest I would love to examine a one of those BIG red ants with the blck stripes
• Bugscope Team sounds great
• Guest THoase are some mighty small mites
• Bugscope Team catch a few, freeze them for 3 to 4 days, or more; then let them air dry for several days before mailing in a crushproof container
• Bugscope Team I think there is a mite on the first preset today but it is hard to make out its orientation
• Bugscope Team with ants tho sometimes they will wake back up so dont assume they are dead
• Bugscope Team yeah they just wake up and start walking around after they've been frozen, sometimes

• 10:56am
• Bugscope Team me driving
• Bugscope Team this I am not sure about
• Guest What is this?
• Bugscope Team may be a tiny scale bug
• Bugscope Team Mrs Prosser you have control now.
• Bugscope Team on the edge of the wing of a much larger insect

• Bugscope Team You can select from among the presets, or drive outright.
• Bugscope Team you should see controls on the upper right (might need to refresh your browser to see )
• Bugscope Team we suggest clicking first on a preset to jump to an insect, and form there you can drive around and explore that insect if you want
• Bugscope Team and you should see the presets to the right of this chat box
• Bugscope Team if the students have computers you can log them in as well
• 11:01am

• Bugscope Team only one person can drive at a time, and presently that is you, Mrs Prosser.
• Teacher thanks
• Teacher same with adjust
• Teacher okay, what are we viewing
  Bugscope Team this is a claw at the end of a leg of some unknown insect
• Bugscope Team unless you know what the insect is scott?
• Bugscope Team here we see how insects often walk; they do not always use the ends of their legs
• Bugscope Team I am not sure what this is.
• Bugscope Team you can drive to the head and see
• Bugscope Team the head is to the NW
• Bugscope Team and you can drive using click to center if you would like
• Bugscope Team they use their claws to grab onto things
• Bugscope Team sometimes it is easier than click to drive
• Bugscope Team and sometimes they have little pads by the claws that have special setae (AKA insect hairs) that allows them to walk on walls
• Bugscope Team or -- just click on one of the presets

• 11:06am
• Bugscope Team this is a place on the back of a tiny ant upon which we can see little crystals
• Bugscope Team if you decrease the magnification you can see just where we are

• Bugscope Team now you can see the eye

• Bugscope Team and the antennae, and the whole head
• Bugscope Team this ant got moldy after it died
• Bugscope Team you can see that focus is up or down
• Teacher what kind of crystal is on the ant's head

• Bugscope Team We are not sure; later we might be able to do elemental analysis, but it is so small we might not get enough of an x-ray signal
• Bugscope Team it looks like calcium carbonate crystals
• 11:12am

• Bugscope Team this is a cute little dude
• Bugscope Team he/she has a head like a borer
• Teacher is the beattle on something
• Bugscope Team it's on carbon tape
• Bugscope Team see all of the tiny setae -- the things that resemble hairs?
• Teacher is this the head of the beattle
• Bugscope Team insects are pretty hairy
• Bugscope Team yes, the head is kind of like a tank turret
• Teacher we are unsure of what we are viewing
  Bugscope Team this is the head, the antennae are the long stalks coming out and down the body
• Bugscope Team you can see that it can swivel

• Bugscope Team does that help you get oriented?
• Bugscope Team now we see that its thoracic legs -- its first set of legs, are both broken off
• Bugscope Team but it does have four more...
• Bugscope Team the two little "feelers" coming out from the head are palps and they are part of the beetle's mouth parts. palps help the insect manipulate or taste its food

• Bugscope Team as you can see by looking at the scalebar, this is a small beetle

• Bugscope Team a few millimeters big

• 11:17am
• Teacher what are the holes
• Teacher cracks
• Bugscope Team we can see the seams in the 'armor' the beetle is wearing
• Bugscope Team insects have their skeleton on the outside
• Bugscope Team the 'exoskeleton'
• Teacher a student wants to know why is the picture black and grey
  Bugscope Team we are using electrons rather than light to collect the images we see

• Bugscope Team this is a nice view of the mouthparts

• Bugscope Team you can see there is a hinged jaw that chews stuff up near the upper part of the screen

• Bugscope Team electrons come to us as signal, and not as color
• Teacher what is the natural color of the insect
• Bugscope Team we beam electrons at the sample and get what are called 'secondary electrons' back
• Teacher where is scot located
• Bugscope Team this beetle was brown
• 11:22am
• Teacher are you using an electron microscope

• Bugscope Team I am in the basement of the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois.

• Bugscope Team I am using a computer next to the electron microscope

• Bugscope Team you are controlling the electron microscope from your classroom

• Bugscope Team it's like you are driving a $600,000 car

• Bugscope Team and you are driving very well

• Teacher wow
• Teacher thank you
• Bugscope Team see the eyes? d'oh Cate beat me
• Teacher compund eyes
• Bugscope Team yes

• Bugscope Team this insect has two compound eyes, which are made up of many different individual facets we call ommatidia that each collect an image and send it back to the brain

• Bugscope Team you can also see the antennae, and the tiny jaws

• Bugscope Team the little ommatidia usually look like hexagons so a lot of kids are reminded of the epcot center

• Bugscope Team this is the beautiful structure of a scale (nice job scott)

• Bugscope Team the scales are what make a butterfly feel silky when you touch it
• 11:27am
• Bugscope Team they come off very easily
• Teacher what kind of butterfly is this
• Bugscope Team if you were a butterfly and you flew into someone's (like a spider's) web, the scales would stick and fall off and you might be able to get away
• Bugscope Team this was from a big yellow and black butterfly -- I'm sorry I don't know what it was. All we had at this time was the wing.
• Bugscope Team butterflies, moths, mosquitos, and silverfish have scales, along with a few other insects, sometimes
• Bugscope Team we had an iridescent green weevil the other day with scales

• Bugscope Team i think usually yellow butterflies are some type of sulphur butterfly (called sulphur because of the color)
• Bugscope Team this is the edge of a palp, and you can see the little slits that we think let chemical smells (odors) in so the insect can taste-test its food

• Bugscope Team the tiny spines are probably mechanosensory setae
• Bugscope Team when we say mechanosensory we mean that they can sense touch, like a cat or rat's whiskers
• 11:35am

• Bugscope Team oh the preset moved a little

• Bugscope Team that was me driving
• Teacher what part of the fly is this?
• Bugscope Team I wanted you to be able to see the little brochosomes; they are on one of its claws

• Bugscope Team as you are -- now you can see that this is a claw we are on

• Bugscope Team if you decrease the mag --yay!

• Bugscope Team you can see the whole claw
• Bugscope Team and if you want you can drive north to see the tarsi, which is what the forearm segments are called

• Bugscope Team that is cool
• Bugscope Team insects often have little pincher like claws, like these

• Bugscope Team now we see part of the wing on the left

• Bugscope Team and the abdomen

• Bugscope Team to the right
• Bugscope Team the samples we are looking at are inside a vacuum chamber

• Bugscope Team this is the click beetle!
• Bugscope Team you found it!
• 11:40am

• Bugscope Team there is a little mite

• Bugscope Team mites usually die with their host
• Teacher what type of mite is it
• Bugscope Team i have no idea, this one is new to me. there arent too many people that research mites

• Bugscope Team the clicking part of the beetle is near the middle of its body. we can see part of it in the lower part of the screen
• Teacher what side of the beetle are we viewing
  Bugscope Team we are looking at the underside. the head is near the top of the screen. you can see its mouthparts and its long antennae
• 11:45am

• Teacher thank you very much for our session
• Teacher we loved it
• Teacher I will schedule another time very soon
• Bugscope Team thank you for all your great questions
• Bugscope Team and you did an awesome job driving
• Bugscope Team Thank You!
• Bugscope Team we look forward to seeing you again
• Bugscope Team I had to do a quick tour for the last few minutes...
• Bugscope Team if you go back to your member page you can look over the images and chat from today
• Bugscope Team at http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/2009-001/
• Bugscope Team now we have someone getting ready to use the 'scope for her research...
• Bugscope Team Thank You aagin!
• Bugscope Team again