We have been celebrating the ten year anniversary of the Nature Museum, the current home of the Chicago Academy of Sciences. In order to commemorate this anniversary we did ten days of free entry with a special event each day. One of the first events I was involved in organizing was a Bug Fest. This was an entire day devoted to all things bug related. It was a very hectic and busy day that involved lots of planning but when it came down to it, it was a great success.
We had a public cockroach feeding session where people could get to see what the roaches get served for lunch!
We had an bug zoo
Where people had the chance to get up close and personal with some of our living bug collection
One of the highlights was Vincent demonstrating how to cook various bugs
His recipes were a great success and you probably won't believe me but they were really tasty!
He prepared Chocolate Chirp Cookies, they had crickets in them, Gumbo with meal worms, Tacos with ant larvae and mole cricket Tempura.
We also displayed a small number of the Academy's extensive historical collections and some of our collections staff were convinced to come out of hiding and share some of the secrets of successfully preserving invertebrate specimens.
For those who wanted a little lighter fare we had a 'bug rocks' station where people could transform a humble rock
into a colourful bug
We also had face painting and there were lots of folks wandering around with all kinds of creepy crawlies painted on their faces! One event which is always hugely popular is our 'first flight' butterfly release. This is when we release all the newly emerged butterflies that have just come out of their chrysalids, into our butterfly haven. The children are always captivated by this.
We ended the day with a series of cockroach races which were highly entertaining and very lively! It was a great, if exhausting day for all of us but all our visitors seemed to have fun and learn some new things, so mission accomplished :)
Photo Credits - CJT
4 comments:
Celeste, looks like fun but you won't find me eating any bugs any time soon! Yuk!
Happy Anniversary Celeste and if I visit you, I will bring my own baked goods....LOL... Please don't apologize for not visiting. If I worked full time, I don't know how I would visit everyone. Stop by when you have time.... Michelle
OK. Bugs don't bother me so much, but the CENTIPEDE? EWWWW! I'm glad you liked the tasty bugs. I think I might be afraid of the crunch!
The cockroach races must have been the highlight! That sounds completely entertaining!
BUT OH MY! I can't imagine all the work that went into all of that!
Blogging and visiting? I'm ALWAYS behind. It's amazing I'm getting to you right now. Just an unexpected quiet evening at home but I'm too tired to do something more constructive--like cook, clean, etc.
The cockroach races would have been great I'm sure! I'd definitely pass on the edibles...gag ;~) You put a lot of work into it and it really did look like a huge success...good job!
No worries about visiting or not...time just gets by so quickly. I have the same problem...you know that!
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