April 18, 2007 BugPeople BugByte News by Eddie Dunbar Done with school! Was 2004 the last time I really wrote anything? Wow. Well, I'm done with the MBA. I can't tell you what a relief it is, either. It has taken a lot of sacrafice. I'd like to think that school is something I won't do again for a long time. But I've wanted to finish school just so I could take some classes. Does that make sense? I've been looking back at Berkeley .. and there are some courses there I'd love to take. The entomology masters is not totally gone. There still are some entomology courses to be had. Well .. what am I working on? BugPeople is changing its strategy. We want to work more with people, especially children here in Oakland, to get them thinking on higher planes about what math and science really is required to effectually pursue an interest in the entomological sciences. As a child, this was something I really could have used more of. In fact, it was not until I was invovled in actual research at Clorox Insecticides and Apex Bait, Inc., that I really got an appreciation for the level to which mathematics was applied in real science. And, really, it was not until just this year that I really began to think about the different forms that science literacy takes. Field notebooks, species checklists, and even specimen data labels are forms of science literacy that are opportunities to teach science literacy. So, BugPeople wants to lead in sharing with young minds and enthusiasts how to commit early to learning the math, science and literacy necessary to succeed in the peripheral disciplines real entomologists requires. Publications? "Insects of the San Francisco Bay Area" (ISFBA) is underway. While I did publish a web guide under the same name while in CityBugs, the CityBugs guide fizzled out even before the Berkeley program did. The guide needs to be republished online. The next logical steps, of course, will be an Adobe Acrobat based CD-ROM and a hard copy in some form. BugPeople also is updating "Lake Merritt and Great Oakalnd Insects." Revisions of the book and CD-ROM should be out by year's end. These guides also are being supported by field cards - a BugPeople innovation. Field cards are 3x5 cards that can be carried into the field. Each card bears the image of a single insect with biological information. Teachers will soon be able to purchase a set of different cards for a field trip; or a set of the same cards for a class lesson. The field cards bear images of some of the best of BugPeople photography. Peace. Eddie Dunbar ()