Session 2012-100 with Jordan Bank Elementary School

Application

The School

The Class

The Project

Miscellaneous

Live Session Transcript

Connected on 2013-02-25 09:00:00 from Chester, Pennsylvania, United States

• 8:03am
• Bugscope Team good morning!
• Bugscope Team the sample stage is in the microscope and the sample chamber is being pumped out
• 8:13am

• 8:20am

• 8:28am

• 8:34am

• 8:44am

• 8:50am

• Teacher good morning!
• Bugscope Team hey good morning!
• Teacher Thanks for getting samples ready for us! I checked my USPS tracking number and it looks like my samples were never delivered :-(
• 8:55am
• Bugscope Team oh I'm sorry to hear that!

• Bugscope Team we are just finishing up with some presets
• Teacher Awesome! This is so cool!!

• Bugscope Team ok we are good to go
• Bugscope Team JB you now have control of the microscope.
• Teacher Great! The class is taking their bathroom break, then they will be back and ready to go.
• Bugscope Team and please feel free to ask us any questions you'd like
• Bugscope Team this is a special sample Cate had made up for Saturday, for the Insect Fear Film Festival here.
• 9:00am
• Bugscope Team It happened to have one pillbug on it, plus all these other cool critters.
• Teacher Perfect! Never heard of the Insect Fear Film Festival!
• Teacher When I click the pics at the left, my display does not change.
• Bugscope Team you can click on any of the presets, on the lefthand screen, to have them then show up on the middle screen; the microscope will have moved to that position on the stub.

• Bugscope Team make sure you click on the blue arrow to get to the preset window and then select a preset picture. if one of the pictures isn't working let us know which one
• Bugscope Team please try again; if it does not work we will restart the server, and if that does not work and we do not find the problem we will be happy to do the selection for you

• Bugscope Team you should also be able to click to magnify a certain area, etc.

• Bugscope Team this is one of the roly poly's claws
• Bugscope Team and now we see its tail
• Bugscope Team its tail area
• Teacher Got it now! Was not hitting the blue arrow.
• Bugscope Team there are fungal hyphae -- strands of fungus -- on this area
• Teacher the students are coming in and getting settled.
• Bugscope Team hi everyone!
• 9:05am
• Bugscope Team if you have an opportunity show the kids the mosquito, beetle, and cricket, plus the spider
• Bugscope Team Hello Everyone!

• Teacher Will do!
• Bugscope Team you can see the segments of the pillbug's body, from the underside

• Bugscope Team this is a mosquito!
• Teacher is this the head?
• Bugscope Team yes it is!
• Bugscope Team you can see its eyes -- all of the little tiny spheres are the individual components of the eyes

• Bugscope Team the things that look like donuts are called pedicels, and they are the bases of the antennae
• Bugscope Team so the antennae come out of the pedicels; they are a little bit hard to see
• Bugscope Team the tiny grape-like things are the ommatidia -- the individual tiny lenses of the compound eyes
• Teacher Very Cool!
• Teacher WHat is the long strand in the front of the pic?
• Bugscope Team the ommatidia, and thus the compound eyes, cover almost all of the head except for the central features we see now
• Bugscope Team it's either part of the mouth or it is a leg
• 9:10am

• Bugscope Team mosquitoes have tiny scales on their bodies like butterflies and moths have on their bodies and on their wings
• Bugscope Team the thing that looks like a leaf on the right is a scale
• Bugscope Team this is the midline of the head
• Bugscope Team this is a female mosquito -- the ones that bite. males do not bite
• Teacher We are loving this!
• Bugscope Team great!
• Bugscope Team sweet!
• Bugscope Team the tiny scales come off easily, and that is good...

• Bugscope Team mosquitos are the deadliest insect because they carry a lot of diseases, like west nile disease and malaria

• Bugscope Team when you rub a butterfly's wings amd they feel silky, and this fine powder comes off -- the fine powder is actually scales
• Bugscope Team now we can see that the central stick or shaft is one of the mosquito's legs
• Teacher Thank you! we are learning a lot!
• Bugscope Team the part that bites is a bit lower
• Bugscope Team we can see the base of it now
• Bugscope Team now you can see that the stick in the middle of its face is part of a leg
• 9:15am

• Bugscope Team this is something we have never noticed before
• Bugscope Team this is the top of a spider's head, and in the lower left corner, the mound we see from the top -- that is one of the spider's eyes
• Teacher The students wanted to look at the spider.

• Bugscope Team there are lots of tiny hairs
• Teacher What are the spots that look like footprints in the sand?
• Bugscope Team spiders are very sensitive to vibration, and the tiny hairs we see, which are called setae ('see-tee') are like little antennae that pick up vibration from the air (sound) and also from the web, if the spider has a web.
• Bugscope Team we do not know what the footprints are! this is the first time we have ever seen them!

• Bugscope Team it's a feature of the cuticle, which is their exoskeleton. I'm not sure what, if anything, it does for them
• Bugscope Team the tiny pores we see are where some of the setae have come out

• Bugscope Team spiders are very fragile, with bodies that are mostly very soft and squishable
• 9:21am
• Teacher We think the hairs look like tree branches :)
• Bugscope Team some spiders, in addition to the setae (the 'hairs'), also have what are called 'urticating hairs' that they release when some big animal like a mouse or even a dog comes along to sniff them
• Bugscope Team the hairs make the insides of the mouse's or dog's nose itch
• Bugscope Team they do look like tree branches!
• Teacher that is amazing!
• Teacher Do spiders have pinchers?
• Bugscope Team some of the setae are called 'plumose' setae, which means that they are like pine trees -- they have branches that come out in all directions
• Bugscope Team no, but they have fangs they use to bite with
• Bugscope Team if you take the magnification down, so it is not so high, you can see more eyes

• Teacher What are the bumps?
• Bugscope Team we can't see the fangs today but there is an ant with big mandibles (jaws) and a stinger
• Teacher lots of ooohs and ahhhhs here!
• Bugscope Team we cannot see the front of the head from this angle, but there are two large things on the front called chelicers, or chelicerae, and at their other ends are the fangs
• Bugscope Team now you see eight eyes!
• Bugscope Team spiders have simple eyes, not like the compound eyes we saw on the mosquito's head
• Bugscope Team but some spiders can see quite well
• 9:26am
• Bugscope Team all of those hairs -- the setae -- help them sense their surroundings
• Bugscope Team insects have a head, a thorax, six legs, two antennae, and also an abdomen

• Teacher The students did a worik sheet about those parts this morning!!
• Bugscope Team spiders have a head that is 'fused' to the thorax, so it is called a 'cephalo (head) thorax'
• Bugscope Team this is the head of a small cricket Cate put on the stub
• Bugscope Team you can see its compound eyes on the left and the right toward the top

• Bugscope Team its mouthparts are very complicated compared to ours
• Bugscope Team the top part of the mouth, here, is called the 'frons'

• Bugscope Team insect mandibles -- the jaws -- open to the left and right, not up and down like our jaws
• Bugscope Team uh oh
• Bugscope Team you can see one of the compound eyes to lower left
• Bugscope Team the antenna on the right is broken
• Bugscope Team those are the pedicels of the cricket antennae
• Bugscope Team when insects die, they dry out and get brittle (like a dead leaf). Their body parts are very easily broken

• Bugscope Team you are doing a good job driving!
• 9:31am

• Bugscope Team sweet!
• Bugscope Team the compound eye has hundreds of ommatidia -- hundreds of tiny lenses

• Bugscope Team because it is round like that -- like a dome -- the cricket has very good peripheral vision -- meaning that it can see in many directions without moving its head
• Teacher We counted 6 sides on the sections of the compound eyes. hexagons!
• Bugscope Team the ommatidia are often hexagonal
• Bugscope Team haha sweet!

• Teacher We are moving to the stinkbug!
• Teacher we have lots of them around here.
• Bugscope Team yuck! They emit a liquid when they are startled that is where they get their name from
• Bugscope Team this is the underside of the head
• Teacher Neat!
• Bugscope Team stinkbugs do not like their own smell any more than any other animal does
• 9:36am
• Bugscope Team we can see that the stinkbug has compound eyes like the cricket, but its mouthparts are different
• Bugscope Team the stinkbug is a 'true bug,' and true bugs have piercing/sucking mouthparts

• Bugscope Team down the middle of the head we see the proboscis

• Bugscope Team the mosquito has a proboscis as well, but it is a kind of fly, not a true bug
• Teacher do you know what the curved strand is on the left?
• Teacher Dare we ask where the liquid comes from?
• Bugscope Team that is one of the internal components of the proboscis that popped out
• Bugscope Team the liquid comes from glands on the ventral side -- the side we are looking at now
• Bugscope Team the liquid comes from a gland on its body
• Bugscope Team the openings to the glands are between the first and second sets of legs
• Teacher Thanks!
• Bugscope Team you can see the opening in one of the other presets
• Teacher We're going to look at one more, but the attention span is about maxed out for these kindergarteners!
• Bugscope Team we understand. surprised they lasted so long!

• 9:41am
• Bugscope Team they are doing very well for kindergarteners
• Bugscope Team oh so cool!
• Bugscope Team this is a trapjaw ant
• Bugscope Team its mandibles are closed together
• Teacher Can we come back and view the pic later?
• Bugscope Team and you can see that it has compound eyes as well -- we see one now
• Teacher What do they do with the jaws?
• Teacher i mean mandibles :)
• Bugscope Team they catch their prey in them, but they also do something else kind of cool
• Bugscope Team when they snap their mandibles shut, it is very forceful, and it can propel them in the air
• Teacher no way!
• Bugscope Team like a spring
• Bugscope Team there is video of them doing that in order to escape predators
• Teacher Is this a red ant or fire ant?
• Teacher The students are very interested!

• Bugscope Team no these are different from fire ants
• Bugscope Team it's not a fire ant, and think it was black before we coated it with gold palladium

• Bugscope Team the compound eye!

• Bugscope Team this is one of the legs, very close to us
• 9:46am

• Bugscope Team it has lots of tiny bristles on it, also called setae

• Bugscope Team insects do not have skin; instead they have an exoskeleton, like a shell or like a suit of armor
• Bugscope Team this is really cool
• Teacher We agree!
• Bugscope Team you found the 'comb' the ant uses to clean its antennae
• Teacher The students say thank you, and they really liked all the bugs1
• Bugscope Team Thank You!
• Teacher We were wondering what that was
• Bugscope Team This was really fun for us.
• Teacher We had a lot of fun and learned so many new things!
• Bugscope Team We enjoyed having you here today.
• Teacher They love the !
• Teacher bugs!
• Bugscope Team sweet!
• Bugscope Team we will look forward to seeing you next year
• Teacher Thanks again. We might look at getting the whole school to view together. About 11 classes.
• Bugscope Team super cool
• Bugscope Team See you!