UI's Bugscope gives area students personal look at insects
By Jodi Heckel
Tuesday October 7, 2008
Robert K. O'Daniell
Elayna Kramer, right, an eighth-grader in Sheila Kirby's science class at Judah Christian School, asks a question while looking at a close-up image of a bug courtesy of the University of Illinois' Bugscope program. The program uses an electron microscope to show tiny bug parts in great detail.
CHAMPAIGN – The images on the computer screen looked like something out of a horror movie. Giant jaws. A long, barbed extension. Claws covered with setae, or stiff, hair-like bristles.
"Grasshoppers have claws?" asked a student in Sheila Kirby's eighth-grade science class at Judah Christian School.
"That is so cool," another said.
Kirby's class was getting a close-up look at teeny, tiny bug parts, thanks to Bugscope, a project of the University of Illinois' Beckman Institute. The project makes a powerful electron microscope available to schools via the Internet.
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