to BUGSCOPE

1. toBUGSCOPE Shannon Cusick

2. Ant Head This is a view of an ant’s head. It has been magnified on the website 92 times. It has two antennae and in addition one visible eye on its head. Its legs have three different sections to it. The mouth is very intricate and has many parts to it including an overbite “fang” look.

3. Ladybug Tenent Setae This is a digital picture of a ladybug’s tenent setae. This is the hair-like structures on a particular type of bug. These can only be observed when looked at extremely close as seen under this microscope. These features are sometimes used by bugs in order to move themselves or also for sensory purposed.

4. Ladybug Eye This picture shows a ladybug’s eye/ Ladybugs have two compound eyes. They are simple and have been reported to be photoreceptors. This means that these bugs can only process light and see dark images. In other words, they only see shadows and are not able to see colors.

5. Hand-drawn LADYBUG My ladybug was drawn by hand to look like a typical friendly ladybug. It has black spots with red wings. The head is black and it has no eyes other than its antennae to feel. The wings are spread a bit with a black undertone in order to show that there is a layer below the wings. The ladybug that I have drawn is very different than that of the ones magnified in the pictures on “Bugscope”. They are much more detailed and show the specific characteristics that are not able to be seen necessarily by the human eye. My ladybug is that of a children’s book and gives the impression to people of what they thing a typical bug of this kind should look like. Although from a normal perception this may be the case, if one looks closer, they will be able to see the vast differences between a drawn and photographed, magnified bug.

6. NSES I think that this particular lesson would most likely correlate with the NSES standard C. I think it would pertain to the area regarding that of the characteristics of organisms. This lesson would prove to young children that there is more than meets the eye. Their perception of insects at this point in their life (between the ages of K-4) would be more likely to be false due to the information presented in books and just observing insects in nature. Their misconceptions would be changed when they get to look at a closer observation of insects through the use of Bugscope. They would learn that insects are actually much more than just friendly creatures in books and understand that they have intricate parts as do we that can be seen when looked at in depth. It resembles the characteristics category as well based on the fast that “each animal and plant has different structures that serve different functions in growth, survival, and reproduction. For example, humans have distinct body structures for walking, holding, seeing, and talking.” In addition, “the behavior of individual organisms is influenced by internal cues and by external cues. Humans and other organisms have senses that help them detect internal and external cues.” These standards come directly from the NSES and directly correlate with the information that would support the concepts trying to be conveyed to the students. These closer structures that are observed will demonstrate to the students the type of cues that insects will pick up on in order to adapt to their environment or other outside sources that could potentially help or harm them. The technology that is used in this experiment will be an accurate view of what a bug looks like close up from multiple samples. If we used a regular microscope in the classroom and tried to do the experiment ourselves we would not achieve the same results. If we did not get the same results, we would not be able to accurately teach the children the differences between the surface and magnified views. The whole idea is to be able to make the children aware of the idea that insects, like humans, have many parts some of which you cannot see when just simply looking at it. We want to pull them away from thinking the insects have only the surface characteristics and move them towards the idea that they too have complex structures.

7. Literature and Application This piece of literature, The Grouchy Ladybug, gives a heart-felt story about a ladybug that makes her way from a grouchy mood to a good mood. As a trade book, it does its job to entertain children and provide them with an delightful story while still teaching them. It acquaints them with not only a ladybug but other bugs as well, making them aware of the different kinds of bugs that interact with one another. It also teaches children the importance of manners and maybe as far as positive attitudes. This book relates directly to the insect that I drew for the Bugscope project. This book, Backyard Bugs, has 80 pages of photos, specifically close-ups, to portray the real visual of bugs to children. Robin Laughlin captures the colors and details of each bug. She manages to fit in both everyday common bugs as well as more exotic bugs. There are also notes about the bugs regarding their habitats and other fun information for children. This book gives pictures from a less magnified view but still captures much of the detail. This is a text that includes all of the information that students would need to know about insects from basic to complex. It is the Insect Biology: A Textbook of Entomology book which has over 100 pages of insects for those who are interested in this field or will study this field. I think this would be helpful for the teacher in being able to give specific information about certain types of insects and what not to the children. This book gives much detail about how to group insects and other information that could be related to the bugs and details that one observes in Bugscope. Bugscope is not just for science alone, a teacher could connect this particular experiment to other subjects as well. Teachers could assign the students to complete a story about their particular bug that they drew prior to the Bugscope or about one that was observed during the experiment for a literature piece. Teachers could also have students read a text about particular bugs filling out a chart as they go about the characteristics of the bug. This would incorporate reading as well as the idea of comprehension because of the chart.