| Description | We feel Bugscope '99 is a wonderful opportunity to interest children in Nature and Biology and at the same time provide a rare opportunity for children to examine bugs at high magnification. Not only will this allow the children to explore the surface of a bug but will also expose them to the power of examining objects at high magnifications. This will help the children begin to understand what can be seen at certain magnifications. We are requesting to participate in Bugscope '99 for our first grade class at ECDC and therefore propose to keep the project fairly simple. The project we have in mind is to examine the honey bee and determine what parts of the bee are specially equipped for the bee's daily work. This will include examining the hair on the body and legs that have been adapted for collecting and removing pollen, the mouthparts that have touguelike structures for sucking nectar from flowers, and more general feature like the wings for flying and the simple and compound eyes for maximum sight. If possible, examining a flower at the same time would show where the pollen originates from and begin to introduce the different flower parts to the children. Prior to examining the bee we will incorporate the life of the bee into our curriculum and examine bees and other insects with dissecting microscopes. For this project we will be assisted by Dr. Jenny Hinshaw, a trained electron microscopist at NIH. The first grade class will include ~10 children and the classroom setting includes access to 10 computers, all hooked up to the network. This project has the potential of being a very memorable experience and one the children will remember for m |
