Published: November 08, 2007 10:03 am         

More than bugs

• Fifth graders learning the difference between insects and arachnids and what they all can do

What’s the most dangerous insect in the world? If you don’t know, ask a Stillwater fifth grade student.

Thanks to a program called “Plant Virus Exploration,” the Stillwater Children’s Museum is offering in several fifth grade classrooms, many students now know the answer.

As part of this Museum Without Walls program, a group of fifth graders from Will Rogers Elementary School visited the OSU Insectary on Wednesday morning to learn more about insects, which are major carriers of viruses.

“Insectary” is a bit of a little misleading, since the small white building on Virginia Avenue just west of the OSU hog farm, houses not only many kinds of insects – both live and mounted – but also arachnids.

In case they’re all bugs to you, ask the kids about the difference and they’ll tell you insects’ bodies are divided into three parts, they have six legs and they often have wings, while arachnids’ bodies are divided into two parts, they have eight legs and they don’t have wings.

The students will also tell you that, although bugs can be major carriers of viruses, they’re not all bad. The world couldn’t get along without them, Andrine Morrison, outreach coordinator for the OSU department of entomology and plant pathology, told the class during their visit to the Insectary. “Two out of every three bites you put in your mouth come from plants pollinated by insects,” she said. “Even the beef we eat comes from cattle that have been fed on alfalfa, which is pollinated by insects.”

And that’s not all. “You eat bugs every day,” Morrison told the astonished students. “Peanut butter, chocolate and bread are some of the foods that contain bugs. They live on the crops these foods come from, and some of them get ground up into our food – which is good for us, because bugs contain lots of protein.”

“Then why do we use pesticides?” asked one young man.

“Because we don’t want some of them in our houses or on our crops,” Morrison said.

Besides, a few bugs are actually dangerous, she told the students, like that most dangerous insect in the world, the mosquito. Mosquitos kill 2 million people every year by spreading diseases like malaria. Arachnids can be dangerous, too. “Ticks and lice (both arachnids) have killed more people than all the wars in the world put together – even the ones with the big bombs.”

Most bugs, though – even the really scary-looking ones – are not dangerous to people, the students learned. “Centipedes bite living creatures – they’re like tiny little Tyrannosaurus Rexes – but millipedes are strictly plant feeders,” Morrison told the students.

Holding a coiled black millipede that covered the palm of her hand, she invited them to touch it.

Later, she held a fearsome-looking scorpion and took hold of its large, curving tail to show them the stinger was actually harmless.

The students got plenty of hands-on experience touching the insects and arachnids and passing some walking sticks from hand to hand, but when Morrison brought out Rosie, a Chilean rose-haired tarantula, she asked them not to touch it. “They don’t like to bite, but when they get scared, they release tiny hairs from their abdomens that are like fiberglass and can hurt your skin. Rosie’s scared with all of you in the room, so we’ll just pass her around in her box,” she said as Allie Drexler, her young assistant, carried Rosie around to them in a clear plastic box.

The class was also fascinated by the story of the vinegarone scorpion, which exudes an irritating vinegary mist when it’s feeling threatened.

Morrison told them the two front legs on arachnids like the scorpion are actually used for smelling and tasting. “Can you imagine what it would be like if you could put your foot in a bowl of something being served for dinner and tell if it was spaghetti or chili?” she asked them.

When she held the Madagascar hissing cockroaches cupped between her two hands and asked the children to be “perfectly silent,” everyone could hear a soft, hissing sound coming from the cockroaches – a sound, she said, that was created when they pulled air through their body cavities, which do not have lungs.

“Which one hisses the most – male or female?” one student asked. “The male hisses more when he’s fighting or looking for a date,” Morrison told him.

The students learned lots more about bugs during their visit to the Insectary, and they were so full of questions, they had a hard time keeping still. But one question elicited an answer that highlighted a major difference between bugs and people: “After it hatches out of the egg, how does the baby insect find its mom?” one girl asked, to which Morrison replied, “It doesn’t have to find its mom. Insects are born with all the instincts they need to survive. After they’re born, they don’t need their mothers.”

The Plant Virus Exploration course will continue in the Stillwater Public Schools with classroom presentations and field trips throughout November. In addition to visiting the OSU Insectary, students will also visit the OSU Microscopy Laboratory.

“We’re trying to expand the information we present during the Plant Virus Exploration course and show the connection to careers in science,” said Stillwater Children’s Museum Executive Director Ruth Cavins. In December and January, the staff hopes to take the program to Perkins and Yale.

For information about this and other programs offered by the Museum Without Walls, contact the Stillwater Children’s Museum at (405) 533-3333 or visit the museum Web site at www.stillwaterchildrensmuseum.org.

     

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