Spreading the Joy of Insects and Buzz Kazoos
Bohart Museum Outreach Program at Vacaville Museum Guild's Children's Party
The Bohart Museum of Entomology spreads the wonder and joy of insects through its many outreach programs.
Tabatha Yang, Bohart Museum education and outreach coordinator, and Bohart intern Jo Ridgeway recently tabled at the Vacaville Museum Guild's annual Children's Party.
The children's party, a popular tradition since 1984, is geared for children ages 3 to 9 and takes place in the museum courtyard.
Yang and Ridgeway answered questions about the "Oh, My" insect specimen displays.
The specimens:
- Insects of California, showcasing such insects as a soldier beetle, crane fly, horse fly, and mosquito
- Butterflies of California, including a monarch, tiger swallowtail, a silvery blue and a buckeye
- The Bees, featuring a honey bee, bumble bee, long-horned bee, and carpenter bee
- The Beetles (Order Coleoptera), including a Hercules beetle, water scavenger beetle, long-horn beetle, and a stag beetle, among others.
Ridgeway, the education and outreach intern at the Bohart Museum and a UC Davis senior majoring in entomology, introduced the crowd of 350 to the live petting zoo. The insects obliged: Madagascar hissing cockroaches and stick insects, aka "walking sticks."
Yang helped the youngsters craft "buzz kazoos," made with sticks, straws and rubberbands. A sign read:
How to Make a Buzz Kazoo
- Wrap the large rubberband lengthwise around one of the wooden sticks
- Get two sections of a straw
- Place one straw piece under the rubberband and the other above
- Put another wooden stick on top of this
- Secure both ends of the buzz kazoo with the smaller rubber bands
- Write your name on it
- Use your buzz kazoo wisely
The children's party also featured a bee observation hive, science projects, and arts and crafts activities from the California Master Beekeeper Program (CAMBP) and the UC Davis Bee Haven (see Bug Squad blog), as well as honey straws from The Hive, Woodland; animals from the Vaca Valley Grange; plus various games, and arts and crafts activities. Mother Goose (Cathy Melter of the Museum Guild) read to the youngsters. One book that drew lots of interest: "Itsy Bitsy Spider."
Among those attending the event were UC Davis doctoral candidate (apiculture) Lauren Gregory Rusert and her children. "They loved it," she said. “It was such a fun event for the kids. There were so many activities for them and the rest of the day they were playing the kazoos they made. The kids, of course, said their favorite thing was the honey sticks.”
Rusert, a member of the E. L. Niño Lab, has worked with bees for almost 20 years, including regulatory-capacity positions in multiple labs. She served as the State of Hawaii Apiary Section Chief before receiving her masters degree in entomology from North Carolina State University, where she studied honey bee queen quality and genetics.
Rusert, who anticipates receiving her PhD in December, is finishing her work on "how different honey bee stocks perform in Northern California and how different plant-based supplementation impacts honey bee hygienic behavior." At UC Davis in the E. L. Niño Lab, she helps teach many California Master Beekeeper Program classes and created an Introduction to Insemination class that she taught for three years. "I also teach beekeeping classes on the side to beekeeping clubs in Northern California," she added. Her husband, Cody, is an elementary art teacher in West Sacramento for 1st-8th grade.
The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, is the home of a global collection of eight million insect specimens, plus a live petting zoo and an insect-themed gift shop.
The Bohart's fall open houses are set for Sunday, Sept. 20 and Saturday, Nov. 7. Both are from 1 to 4 p.m. The September open house is themed "ABC's of the Museum" (learn the many steps it takes to build a collection) and the November open house will focus on UC Davis graduate and undergraduates research. Open houses are free and family friendly.
Director of the Bohart Museum is Professor Jason Bond, the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and executive associate dean, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
