ITG Technology Development: Bugscope

Bugscope is an educational outreach project of the Beckman Institute. Participating classrooms from around the nation have the opportunity to image insects using an Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope controlled using a web browser from their classroom computers. The primary goal of the project is to demonstrate that relatively low cost, sustainable access to sophisticated remote instrumentation can be made available to K-12 classrooms.

Bugscope web site

Click here to go to the Bugscope web site

Bugscope in the News

Click here to see a list of news articles about Bugscope

Information Technology for Outreach Project 

ITOP is a project to support the development of information technology (IT) to automate the infrastructure, administration and data handling tasks necessary to support remote instrumentation projects for K-16 education. Click here to go to the ITOP website.

Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope

Click here to go to the ESEM homepage.

Other remote microscopy projects in the ITG

Click here to go learn more about these remote microscopy projects.

Publications:

“ Bugscope: A practical approach to providing remote microscopy for science education outreach”, C.S. Potter, B. Carragher, L. Carroll, C. Conway, B. Grosser, J. Hanlon, N. Kisseberth, S. Robinson, U. Thakkar and D. Weber, Microscopy and Microanalysis, Accepted for publication

“C.S. Potter, B. Carragher, L. Carroll, C. Conway*, B. Grosser, J. Hanlon, N. Kisseberth, S. Robinson, P. D. Stone*, U. Thakkar** and D. Weber, "Bugscope: A Sustainable Remote Microscope Project for K-12”, International Conference of the Learning Sciences 2000 (ICLS 2000). Paper for the panel on “Participatory science via the Internet”, pp.379-380, 14-17 June 2000, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

“U. Thakkar, B. Carragher, L. Carroll, C. Conway, B. Grosser, N. Kisseberth, C.S. Potterm S. Robinson, J. Sinn-Hanlon, D. Stone and D. Weber, "Formative Evaluation of Bugscope: A sustainable world wide laboratory for K-12”, Paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of American Educational Research Association, Special Interest Group on Advanced Technologies for Learning, New Orleans, LA, April 24-28, 2000.

“C.S. Potter, B. Carragher, L. Carroll, C. Conway*, B. Grosser, J. Hanlon, N. Kisseberth, S. Robinson, D. Stone*, U. Thakkar** and D. Weber, "Bugscope: The Second Year of a Sustainable Remote Microscope Project for K-12 Education Outreach”, Invited talk.  Microscopy and Microanalysis 2000.

“C.S. Potter, B. Carragher, M. Ceperley, C. Conway, B. Grosser, J. Hanlon, C. Hoyer, N. Kisseberth, S. Robinson, J. Sapp, P. Soskin, D. Stone, U. Thakkar, and D. Weber, Carragher, "Bugscope: A sustainable web-based telemicroscopy project for K-12 Classrooms”, Proceedings Microscopy and Microanalysis 99, August 1-5, 1999, Portland, OR Volume 5 Supplement 2 pp.514-515

Presentations:

"Discovery Science Center", presentation by Benjamin Grosser, Director, Imaging Technology Group, May 2002

"Inquiry Page Meeting", presentation by Benjamin Grosser, Director, Imaging Technology Group, May 2002

"Beckman@Science", presentation by Benjamin Grosser, Director, Imaging Technology Group,  November 2001

"Bugscope", presentation by Scott Robinson for the Associated Systematics Collection, Field Museum, June 2001

"Interactive Remote-Access Scanning Electron Microscopy for K-12 Students: The Bugscope Project", presentation by Scott Robinson, International Congress of Entomology, Entomological Society of America/Entomological Society of Canada, Montreal, Canada, 4-7 December 2000.