An exhibit at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science looks at the life of different bugs you might see as you go about your day. "Bug Lab" opens Saturday.
"How do we spark that interest in our visitors' minds to potentially open up a whole new world for them?" asks Perot Museum Vice President of Exhibitions and Operations Mike Spiewak.
As visitors walk in, a swarm of lightning bugs on video screens will follow them down the hall. Inside, the exhibit includes "immersive bug chambers," interactive stations and hands-on activities.
"We want folks to understand, one, there's a reason things happen and, two, we want them to think about, 'How could we use that someplace else?'" says Chief Learning Officer Drex Owusu.
Visitors can color outlines of an orchid mantis to help it blend in with its surroundings as a mantis would do to camouflage itself. In the bee chamber, they can rub pads quickly to mimick the speed of bees trying to create enough heat to drive off a hornet.
"The idea of bees not communicating the way you and I would but still working together for a common end and common good is really a fascinating idea and concept," he says. "How can we use that same idea of hive mentality for our community and our world?"
Spiewak says researchers may look at how bees use their hive mentality as they research how to develop small robots that can work together to accomplish a task.
"You can put these two pieces together. You might not realize how they tie into STEM," he says. "You might have thought it's just about bugs and how they live. There's so much more about bugs that relate to other sciences than just the biology. These are amazing animals that actually make impacts on medical sciences to robotics."
In another chamber, a giant wasp has injected poison to paralyze a roach, but Spiewak says the wasp does not want to kill the roach. Instead, the wasp wants to keep the roach alive so its larvae can feed off its nutrients.
"We're trying to find these fun stories that are kind of a little bit creepy but also fascinating," he says. "We're so locked in making sure we inspire audiences to learn about things they might not realize were out there or might not realize they had interest in."
Perot Museum's Bug Lab opens Saturday. More information is available at https://www.perotmuseum.org/exhibits/bug-lab/ .