Session 2011-113 with Skiles Test Elementary

Application

The School

The Class

The Project

Miscellaneous

Live Session Transcript

Connected on 2012-01-24 14:00:00 from Marion, Indiana, United States

• 1:05pm
• Bugscope Team sample is pumping down
• 1:18pm

• 1:23pm

• 1:30pm

• 1:36pm

• 1:42pm

• 1:48pm

• Bugscope Team we are ready!
• 2:08pm
• Guest HI there- just here for a bit to capture some screen shots :) Michele
• Bugscope Team Hi Michele!
• Bugscope Team we gave you control in case you wanted to go to a specific preset
• Bugscope Team We are ready for our classroom but becoming rather less confident that they remembered us.
• Guest Cool! I am in a meeting now so will be quick and discrete ;)
• Bugscope Team some people don't check their email every 4 or 5 waking minutes like we do
• Bugscope Team this is a totally cool wasp that Cate critical point dried
• Guest REALLY nice sample!
• Bugscope Team you can see its tongue, and you can see the pores below the antennae, called anterior tentorial pits

• Bugscope Team they're like natural sprues for a sculpture -- they don
• Bugscope Team d'oh
• Bugscope Team they don't lead anywhere

• Bugscope Team it is possible Pam L. will log on today as well
• Guest love the texture

• Bugscope Team she's the science coordinator for a session next week
• Bugscope Team sweet

• 2:14pm

• Bugscope Team it laps up liquid I believe
• Guest so does this tongue do anything?
• Bugscope Team yeah I think they live on nectar
• Guest This is an incredible preset
• Bugscope Team these are sensillae on the wasp's antenna
• Guest SO the tongue on the wasp is structured to lap up liquids it seems
• Bugscope Team the wide setae are like spatulas, allowing the nectar to be scooped up
• Bugscope Team these are presumably chemoreceptors
• Guest this is good material for sci fi movie outfits!

• 2:19pm
• Bugscope Team I was just writing another teacher and inviting her to try logging in now.
• Guest cool...

• Guest Could you all "drive" to a super cool spot that you would like to see on a screen shot for the Australia talk?
  Bugscope Team Cate is doin' it.

• Bugscope Team here's some bacteria on a biofilm
• Bugscope Team e. coli looks like this
• Guest what sort of biofilm?
• Bugscope Team many bacteria exude a film -- a polysaccharide film, so its kind of made of sugar, like in a fairy tale -- that they swim around in
• Bugscope Team it's...
• Bugscope Team more like slime
• Bugscope Team the biofilm right now looks like the webbing
• Bugscope Team the biofilm protects the bacteria from drying out, and also from being washed away when you clean your vegetables
• Bugscope Team when it was critical point dried it broke up a bit
• Guest I see!
• Guest the biofilm is on the ESEM stage?
  Bugscope Team in this case it is on a filter; Cate cut a piece of the filter. some classes want to see bacteria specifically, and we aren't always able to find them on ordinary samples
• Guest great idea!
• 2:25pm
• Bugscope Team when grad students want to prepare a bacteria sample for something else, like actual research, sometimes we appropriate their samples when they're done
• Guest very good use to the scope!
• Guest These things are good to know for the presentation.

• Guest Tell me about this trap door.
• Bugscope Team if the biofilm was intact, as in life, the bacteria would look like bumps under a blanket
• Bugscope Team this is a Mexican jumping bean

• Bugscope Team so beneath the trap door is where the larva jumps around.
• Bugscope Team they have moth larvae in them, which is why they jump when you heat them up
• Bugscope Team when the larva turns into a moth and decides to make its way into the world, it crawls out of the trapdoor
• Bugscope Team apparently it's quite a struggle getting out, and there are scales everywhere
• Guest How long do they take to "incubate" and get out? You see these in stores.
  Bugscope Team like in grocery stores where you live? that is pretty progressive
• Bugscope Team they can enter a period of dormancy if the conditions aren't right
• Guest I have seen them in novelty stores in the Midwest and here.
• 2:30pm

• Bugscope Team they can live in it for months
• Guest So I wonder if they ever "hatch" when people buy them and hold them to make them jump.
• Bugscope Team yeah they have varying 'gestation times'
• Bugscope Team the moths, when they hatch, are said to llive only for a few days
• Guest It would be a great class project to have some of them and then view this on Bugscope.
• Bugscope Team yeah that would be a fun project
• Bugscope Team you can keep your jumping beans in the fridge
• Guest I will keep my eyes open for them here.
• Bugscope Team we could also, perhaps, put them into the microCT while they are still inside

• Bugscope Team you know we got owl pellets from a class once, and we put those into the microCT
• Bugscope Team we got 3D x-ray images of the mouse and vole and mole bones inside the pellets
• Bugscope Team they would have to be still for microCT
• Bugscope Team this is an aphid cornicle
• Bugscope Team it's like a dual exhaust for aphids
• Guest Ooohh...owl pellet stuff would be fun. I would love to see a list of projects that teachers have done with Bugscope as a tool to investigate. Do you have anything like that?
• Bugscope Team sometimes they produce, from the cornicle, the nectar that ants like
• 2:35pm
• Bugscope Team we don't have a list, just some projects that stick out more than others
• Bugscope Team but some aphids don't produce nectar via the cornicles; instead they produce this stuff like hot-melt glue that immobilizes the ant
• Guest If you have a chance, Cate, can you list off some education applications?
• Guest Looks like an anteater snout.
  Bugscope Team in some cases it is much like that...
• Bugscope Team there was this one fun csi project once where they sent in some pollen and some shoe laces and they had to see which suspect's shoe lace was at the scene of the crime the pollen was at
• Bugscope Team scot wasn't in that day
• Guest So Bugscope has gone beyond Bugs at times....

• Bugscope Team when we do those 'forensic' analysis things for classrooms, we also suggest that they send different fabrics. the weave and the size of the threads is almost always different with different fabrics.
• Bugscope Team sometimes we put sugar and salt in as well, and as Cate mentioned, pollen from a variety of flowers
• Guest I love these ideas. It is good for inquiry learning and using a remote tool for scientific information - it engages kids!
• Bugscope Team classes have sent in various life stages of darkling beetles and same for painted lady butterflies
• Bugscope Team salt (sodium chloride) makes cubic crystals, and sugar makes other more complex crystals shapes
• Guest Another excellent application!

• 2:40pm
• Bugscope Team but we never venture too far from insects/arthropods; they're just the most interesting

• Bugscope Team this is a pretty grumpy-looking aphid
• Guest I would love to do a joint session with Amy Stewart soon - the author of Wicked Bugs
• Guest The aphid is grumpy looking.
  Bugscope Team they're softbodied, like dustmites, so when they air dry -- no telling what they'll look like

• Bugscope Team when we critical point dry aphids they look much better
• Guest gorgeous shot!
• Guest I will send my next batch of bugs in alcohol.
• Bugscope Team this one was in a conga line just before Cate critical point dried it

• Guest It looks to be ready to dance

• Bugscope Team there...
• Bugscope Team hope you send some exciting ones
• 2:46pm
• Bugscope Team we got a good set of super tiny critters from a Collembola guy yesterday -- springtails and some other insects
• Guest I have some bed bugs somewhere...in a vial of alcohol....
  Bugscope Team good place for them
• Guest an exterminator friend gave them to me.
• Bugscope Team how sweet
• Bugscope Team like William Burroughs?

• Bugscope Team I think he had a job doing that once

• Guest I don't know William Burroughs

• Bugscope Team you can Google him

• Guest I will :)
• Bugscope Team he was actually in commercials, on TV, in the 90's
• Bugscope Team he wrote Naked Lunch
• Guest I have to log off soon to present something at my meeting :) If you see any other cool screen shots, send them my way. I will send my presentation to you soon.
• Bugscope Team Cool. Thank You! You were it today!
• Guest I am glad I logged on. I could be on here for hours :) Sorry the school bailed on you.
• Bugscope Team two for two
• 2:51pm
• Guest OK - see you again. I may log in on Monday as well for that session :)
• Bugscope Team see you!