Connected on 2010-06-15 12:00:00 from North Plainfield, NJ, US
- 12:13pm
- Bugscope Team hi Lulu
- Bugscope Team hi lulu
- Bugscope Team we were setting up for today's school, and they should have been on by now. but we have not heard from them yet.
- Guest oh no!
- Bugscope Team we called and left them a message...
- Guest that's too bad, i wanted to observe their session so that I know how to prep my students\
- Bugscope Team so if we don't hear from them in 10 or 15 we may go ahead and postpone, try to reschedule
- Guest ok
- Guest i'll hang out for a sec
- Bugscope Team Lulu if you'd like, because they're not on and we're all dressed up with no place to go, you may drive, try things out for yourself
- Bugscope Team I just gave you control of the microscope
- Bugscope Team please let us know when you have any questions
- Guest wow this is amazing
- Bugscope Team this is the pulvillus -- the pad of sticky setae on the forearm of the insect -- that helps the beetle stick to walls, etc.
- 12:18pm
- Bugscope Team the forearm is broken up into 3 to 5 tarsi, or tarsomeres.
- Bugscope Team the claws are at the end
- Guest how many species would you like us to send you for our session in July?
Bugscope Team whatever you would like, whatever best suits you -- we like small and more specialized insects, usually
- Bugscope Team so you can cruise freely from here, and you can also click on any of the presets to have the microscope drive you to that place on the stub
- Bugscope Team flies are good, mosquitoes, ticks, tiny beetles, ladybugs... earwigs are cool; wasps, ants, bees, small moths.
- Bugscope Team if we get butterflies we put the body on, trim the wings down, put a piece of the wing on the stub so the kids can see the scales...
- Guest ok, and how long should i let them dry out before i send them?
Bugscope Team what I do is catch them, freeze them for a few days or more, then let them air dry 3 or 4 days
- Guest ok sounds good
- 12:23pm
- Bugscope Team some critters, like larger ants, may wake up again, but usually they die upon being frozen
- Guest oh that is good to know
- Bugscope Team and send them in non-crushable containers, maybe loosely wrapped in Kleenex, once they're dry
- Guest i only froze mine for a day, so i will put them back in!
Bugscope Team likely that will be alright; it's just the very large ants that have confounded us
- Guest if i can't ID the insects myself, can you?
Bugscope Team we do our best...
- Guest ok great
- Bugscope Team all of the chat and images are saved to your member page and accessible later
- Guest have teachers ever had their students do scavenger hunts?
- Guest to find body parts, etc
- Bugscope Team each session is always a little different depending on the ages of the kids, whether there's a computer lab available, if you're projecting or using a smartboard, etc.
- 12:28pm
- Bugscope Team well you can send the kids to collect the critters in the first place
- Guest i believe we will be using our computer lab
- Guest i am very excited, i think this is going to be great!
- Bugscope Team it would be a little tricky to have them do a scavenger hunt during a session because each person would have to have control for a short period of time. but it could be done
- Bugscope Team we are particularly fond of sessions in which we get to chat with the kids -- answer their questions
- Bugscope Team it is so much fun
- Guest this is really amazing, thank you for letting me play around
- Bugscope Team be sure and try clicking on a few presets if you have time
- Bugscope Team cool!'
- Bugscope Team that took you to another place on the stub, from which you can explore if you wish
- Bugscope Team you can see the compound eye and the proboscis, which is nicely coiled when it is not being used
- Bugscope Team and lots of scales...
- Bugscope Team you can see one claw
- Bugscope Team hexagons
- 12:34pm
- Bugscope Team these are the ommatidia -- the individual facets of the compound eye
- Bugscope Team you can see that the ant eye is less complex
- Guest how long is a typical session?
Bugscope Team 45 minutes to over an hour; sometimes a few classes will cycle through at 20 minute intervals
- Bugscope Team we share the microscope with people who are paying to use it for their research, so we cannot run this all of the time.
- Bugscope Team you are a good driver, Lulu
- Bugscope Team there are usually 2 to 4 or 5 of us here to answer questions on chat
- Guest actually, i am having a lot of fun -- this is pretty amazing
- Bugscope Team yay!
- Bugscope Team it's good for us -- you get to test, and we didn't waste the setup
- Bugscope Team we do not use the same sample twice; each session gets a new sample
- Bugscope Team you can focus up or down and see how that works...
- 12:39pm
- Bugscope Team if it gets worse you go the other way
- Bugscope Team sweet
- Bugscope Team we think of the electron microscope and the insects -- Bugscope -- as a sort of Trojan horse to get students interested in the possibility of science as a career option or just a path of study
- Guest my class is actually a mix of science and writing. we will do a lot of science at the beginning but then we will be writing science fiction stories and creating 'superbugs'
- Bugscope Team that sounds great!
- Guest oh that's awesome
- Guest yea so this will be a great way for them to think about what a superbug would look like
- Bugscope Team we want them to see the bugs, and the gross stuff like stingers or a mite stuck to the eye of an earwig, and we want that to pique their interest, make them wonder why the images are in b&w, why the 'bugs' are so 'hairy,' and on and on. until they say 'is the microscope easy to use?' and 'what did you have to study in school to be able to do this?'
- 12:44pm
- Bugscope Team it's the most fun thing we do during a week
- Guest i can see why!
- Guest my students will love this
- Bugscope Team great!
- Guest i think i am going to sign off now, but this has been very helpful!
- Guest thank you!
- Bugscope Team thank you!
- Bugscope Team see you soon
- Guest bye!
- Bugscope Team maybe we will see you during another session!
- Bugscope Team bye!
