Hello Everyone! My name is Katrina and I am currently a freshman at UNL enrolled in Entomology 115. When I was younger I would always play with bugs and catch them and build habitats for them in jars. I thought it was so much fun to watch them crawl around and explore what I had just created for them. For Entomology 115 we had to do something similar, but with a cockroach. Bugs have never made me nervous and I usually do not mind being in their presence, but being around a cockroach was a different story. Providing a habitat of a plastic terrarium with coconut husk laid on the bottom was fun to put together, but handling the cockroach made me slightly nervous and I was not entirely sure how I should handle one. I named my cockroach lil Squish because she was not very little and my roommates wanted nothing to do with my new pet, but squish her. It took me a couple of days to become comfortable with my new pet and towards the end of my three week period with her I realized that cockroaches could be considered a perfect pet to own. Cockroaches do eat more than you would expect, but they will eat mostly anything I learned so there is no need to go to a pet store and purchase fancy food. You do not have to clean cockroaches because there are small bugs that live on the cockroach and constantly clean him/her. I never would have expected to have owned a cockroach as a pet, but after doing so I have learned a lot and that having one as a pet is quite enjoyable! 

Many of the students in the introductory entomology course at UNL, Insect Biology 115, are going to be guest blogging here on my site. Thanks for giving these raptorial legs a bit of a break. We look forward to hearing about your own adventures with insects!  ---Psyche the Mantis

Entomology and my life

Hello Everyone! My name is Timmatha and I am currently a junior at UNL majoring in Elementary Education. So first I can tell you some interesting things about myself. First, I have an amazing 18 month old son who is more than curious about bugs. Matter of fact he decided to eat two beetles the other day. I freaked out and scooped out the chewed up beetles from his mouth just for him to say "Yum mama!!!". That definitely lightened the mood! Before this class you could say I wasn't particularly fond of certain insects. I was and am still absolutely terrified of spiders, but have grown to be a lot more interested and fond of other insects. I have truly become the most interested in metamorphosis within insects and how it works. I didn't really understand the process before and I truly never knew not all insects went through it. I also thoroughly enjoyed our Hissing Cockroach study. I was very nervous to get mine as I heard some could be pregnant and some had even gotten out. I was worried about it getting out at night and crawling on me in my sleep!!!!! Thought I wasn't too excited the day I came home with it, my son was ecstatic. All he ever wanted to do was look at it and feed it. He liked to look at it at nighttime and watch it move around everywhere. Also, the food choices that were experimented were chosen completely by my son! Though I grew to really enjoy Tom, I knew I still didn't like him enough to keep him (as much as my son may have wanted to). But it did give me more appreciation for the animals I once just thought were gross.

Since I am majoring in Elementary Education I really think it is important to impact my students and get their attention. I don't want their year in my room to just be another year of school without anything truly memorable. I chose to take this class because I knew I would have to learn about and interact with certain insects I wouldn't have before. I wanted to learn more about them to hopefully in my future create a fun experiment with my students as well. In my practicum last semester they watched caterpillars turn into butterfly's and that was truly the highlight of each child's day. No matter if the student enjoyed the subject or not, it was truly interesting for them to be able to watch that and then release them. I am a firm believe in hands on learning and this is such a great way. It gets students engaged and really working with what they are learning about. It isn't just a video or a page in a book. With an in class experiment they will have to make their own hypothesis and actually collect their own data which in return is going to help them pay thorough attention. I hope this can not only help me with my future in teaching but as well as a mother. I want to be able to educate my son when his curiosity is running wild. I want to be able to "get down and dirty" as some would say and enjoy those exciting hands on moments!

The Bee's Needs 

by: Sydney Lawton

Hi there, I'm Sydney and I'm in my last semester of my undergrad career about to receive my B.S. in Environmental Studies come summer-loving season. I'm hoping to dive into some environmental education work after pursuing my master's in teaching so that I can be a part of a movement to protect the environment during the crisis of Climate Change that we are ever so presently facing. I am passionate about teaching from the bottom up through experiential learning so that children can nurture their own deep relationship with the immaculate natural world we live in. I'm just about to begin some volunteer work at my second Waldorf School in the Pacific Northwest and couldn't be more excited to see if this is the school I'd like to teach for as they practice a lot of Steiner's philosophy, which could be an entirely different blog post. 

So, It's just about Spring here in Portland, Oregon and I've been enamored with the early bloom of flowers covering the city. I've also been thinking about my favorite little insects, the bees, as I dip into my High Oregon Desert local honey to cure a cold I'm feeling creeping up in these last winter hours. These guys are the essence of Spring. They come out of their "winter clusters" ready to buzz around, flower to flower, pollinating the plants that we find so colorful and alive (maybe too colorful and alive for those of you with allergies). A lot of people may overlook just how important these worker bees are for the equilibrium of the planet. I won't get too into it because I'd like to keep this fun and informational. But: I would like to share this freelance illustrator, Hanna Rosengren of Maine, with this blog because I think what she has created is not only cute and sweet, but helps the homeowners and gardeners know what plants they can use in their kitchen gardens to help these little guys thrive. I don't know her personally so I have attached her website link to the bottom of the page if you would like to check it out! SO, happy almost spring! Plant these, to help save bees! 

May your coming months be fruitful!

http://www.hannahrosengren.com/help-save-bees.html

There has been some concern in recent years that the Monarch numbers are going down. Here is some good news!

Here is some cool news about cockroaches and how they have inspired robot design! See the article here!

Teaching the next generation of Entomologists! Read this article about UNL's Science Literacy and Outreach Program: Students Swarm to UNL Entomologist for Class Project