Bugscope! An Educational Outreach Project for K-12

Dr. Umesh Thakkar, Research Scientist, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Dr. Umesh Thakkar presented the remote instrumentation work he was been doing with the innovative project Bugscope. Bugscope allows K-12 students and teachers to remotely manipulate a state-of-the-art Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope (ESEM) from anywhere in the world via the Internet. Teachers submit a proposal for a project using the ESEM, send in their specimens, and connect to the site at the appointed day and time.

After a brief introduction to the project, Dr. Thakkar connected to the Bugscope site and seminar participants were able to manipulate the ESEM. While we explored various parts of various bugs, such as the stinger of a yellow jacket, each ESEM image that we captured was automatically saved to the Bugscope database. All images in the database are immediately available online for public viewing. (The images from our session can be viewed at http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/members/database.cgi by entering "2006-16" in the "Account Name" box and clicking on "Search".)

We captured detailed views of a wasp's eye and the setae on the legs of an insect. When questions arose, either scientific or pedagogical, we chatted synchronously with Scott Robinson, a research engineer with Bugscope, who immediately answered our questions. Scott and several other Bugscope volunteers also guided our explorations, steering us towards views of insect anatomical structures that we would find interesting. Looking at the specimens at different levels of magnification established a context for the minute structures we were viewing.

Through the use of Bugscope, students have remote access to expensive scientific equipment and simultaneous support from an expert in the field of microscopy. This combination of technologically advanced equipment and instructional support makes Bugscope a robust model for primary and secondary science education.

-- John Bickar, TIE '06