| Description | I would use Bugscope with my 7th grade life science students. We have just begun our study of the animal kingdom. We started out with sponges, worms, cnidarians, and mollusks. Now we are getting ready to begin our unit on arthropods, insects, and echinoderms. As a graduate student with a concentration in technology, I try to incorporate use of technology as often and as creatively as I can. We have already participated in two other Internet based projects this year. One was the Great Chocolate Experience and the other was the Dirty Dirt Project. For this, we had to send a soil sample from the school grounds to be analyzed. We are awaiting the results so that we can generate graphs and decide how we can improve the soil for planting. When we did our worm study we used "The Yuckiest Site on the Internet" to get a close up view of worms and the use of worm bins. We also learned about planaria, tapeworms, and leeches. I can envision that the Bugscope site would have the same benefits for my students. The one place where we are lacking is our ability to have a class set of microscopes. We generally use a video microscope that is hooke dup to a television screen. But even that is not the best. Having access to a site like Bugscope with the capabilities of operating an electron microscope would be a wonderful experience for my students. They are an enthusiastic bunch and would enjoy an opportunity like this and would benefit by it immensely. Since we have the capability of using four Pentium PCs right in my classroom, it would be very accessible for the students. Right now, we use these computers to email our responses to math questions from Swarthmore University. It is very convenient having them right in the room with us at all times. But when I want all students to be on a computer at one time, we also have access to the MAC lab. I hope you consider us for your project. There are also four other life sciences classes in our school. They could also share in the use of this technology. I am looking forward to hearing from you. |
