BUGSCOPE: CURRENT AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

 

Bugscope Team

Imaging Technology Group, Beckman Institute, UIUC

2/1/2005

3rd Floor Tower, 3269 Beckman

Bugscope is an educational outreach project that provides real-time, web-based access to ITG's Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope (ESEM) so that children across the world can look at bugs. Allowing school kids, teachers, and teacher educators to operate the same $500,000 ESEM which the Institute's faculty use for their research, the Bugscope project is an active example of the Institute's engagement with the community. This successful, collaborative project has been serving the needs of the education community since 1999, and has gained extensive attention locally, nationally, and internationally as a model project for remote interactive education. This talk will include a project overview along with an initial analysis of its use in a variety of educational settings. It will also review new directions for the technology behind the project, offshoot projects, and other related areas. Anyone interested in providing educational outreach to the community for current and/or future grants, or with an interest in the project in general, is encouraged to attend.