The Worldly Antenna of International Issue 3 January 2007 Number 1 Happy New Year, bers! Introduction WPZ RWPZ DAllas Zoo Brookfield Trips! We hope you enjoyed your holiday break and are ready for more learning and exploration in the world of bugs! Even though it is winter time, don't stop looking, because you might just find some bugs where you didn't expect! Fact: Some studies have stated that you can find a spider within three feet of you at all times! So keep your eyes open! In this issue of the Worldy Antenna, we have some wonderful updates from many of our groups as well as pictures and stories of bugs from around the world! Make sure to share your great activity and snack ideas for future news! Leaders, please compile submissions for The Worldly Antenna from your and have them in by the Submission dates below. You can send stories, photos (high resolution), drawings (scanned) or ideas for bug club activities to bug.club@zoo.org. Submission Publication March 10 March 25 We look forward to your contributions! - Thanks from Erin, Katie and Sue
Woodland Park Zoo Woodland Park Zoo is going strong! Page 2 Our last three meetings have been focused on looking at bugs from the inside and out! We focused on Bug Guts, Exoskeletons and Bug Behavior. While studying Bug Guts, we ate a bug jello mold with plenty of candy guts inside; during our Exoskeleton study, we acted out molting and had a bug parade with exoskeleton costumes; and we ended the year by digging deeper into the world of Bug Behavior and how it relates to bug anatomy by watching beetle battles on the always popular Microcosmos video! In the upcoming year, Woodland Park Zoo will be gearing up for a whole year dedicated to studying POLLINATORS! Some of our upcoming topics include Planting a Pollinator Garden, Counting and Mapping Bugs in the Field, and Pollinators of Africa and Papua New Guinea. We are also excited about our 10th Anniversary Celebration which will take place September 23rd where we will invite all past members and their families for a day of activities and celebration of our favorite invertebrate critters! In preparation for the day, our bug clubbers will be creating bug artwork with the help of a local art teacher to be displayed as an art gallery, as well as making instruments for bug music! Have a great year! - Woodland Park Zoo
Roger Williams Park Zoo Page 3 Roger Williams Park Zoo had a wonderful fall! We had 15 very active bug club members and some amazing bug activities. Halloween was the perfect time to talk about spiders and their importance. The kids really enjoyed making a spider web craft and learning about spiders. They even went on a spider hunt to look for spiders around the zoo. We also participated in the Monarch Migration project. We received a bunch of butterflies from the Dallas Zoo. RWPZoo members loved reading about what it is like in Dallas. Then, the kids made some beautiful butterflies and wrote about the weather in RI, along for some warnings for any migrating monarchs that it is getting cold in RI and to beware of predators. We sent all of these butterflies to Dallas. Thanksgiving is a special celebration of giving thanks for what we have. And what would we have without the bugs! The bug club members learned all about bugs that help us in our daily lives. They also made some great art work with fruit stamps, of course pollinated by the bugs. THANK YOU BUGS! - Roger Williams Park Zoo
Dallas Zoo Page 4 Dallas would first like to thank the Roger Williams Park Zoo s for helping their monarchs learn a little about life in Providence, Rhode Island. This adventure started when some of their kids wrote about their life in Dallas either as an attachment or on the back of a monarch butterfly coloring sheet. Then they sent those on as if they were migrating. During the class they also learned the importance of monarch tagging during their fall migration to Mexico. With the help from Tim Brys, Dallas Zoo bers got the chance to tag about 20 monarchs on that warm October day. - Dallas Zoo
Brookfield Zoo Page 5 Hello from the Brookfield Zoo! It was a great fall season of and we are already getting ready for the fun winter session! This January we will be learning about centipedes and millipedes! During the fall we focused on Arachnids so try out these fun Spider and Scorpion Tongue Twisters! Scorpion Skittering scorpions sting segmented centipedes. Skeptical scorpions skew Santa s supposed scheme. Spider Ten tethered tarantulas twirl above twelve tiny tortoises. Daddy long legs leap over eleven level lilies lying on the lake. - Brookfield Zoo
International Trips Page 6 In December, Katie went with a Woodland Park Zoo trip to Kenya and spent time in a Maasai community as well as visiting national parks to observe wildlife. The best wildlife was, of course, the bugs (or wadudu in Swahili)! The short rainy season had begun and all the bugs were very active. There were dung beetles, flower beetles, assasin bugs, walking sticks, mantids, butterflies -- all huge and beautiful! The dung beetles were very busy and fun to watch. In November, Sue went to Papua New Guinea to work with teachers and students. Sue along with Anne Bartin from St. Lois Zoo and Anne Warner from Oregon Zoo made the long trip over to bring curriculum and kits to the local village schools. The teachers learned about Biodiversity (the variety of life on the planet) while studying bugs! And, if you didn't know it already, some of the greatest diversity on the earth comes from the world of bugs, so that is why they are so important to study and protect! There were many bugs in the village of Sapmanga, and some of our favorites were the giant butterflies, preying mantids and the huge masses of orb spiders!