- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
As you shelter in and look for something intriguing to do, would you to learn more about entomology, the science of insects?
The Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis, home of nearly eight million insect specimens, offers a wealth of information on insects in its free fact sheets that you're welcome to peruse and download. Topics include beetles, wasps/bees, mites/ticks, ants, flies, butterflies/moths, true bugs, and non-insects (think spiders, lawn shrimps, scorpions, springtails.) The fact sheets are the work of Bohart director Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
If you want a bug identified, you can also shoot Professor Kimsey an email at lskimsey@ucdavis.edu.
As for how to create an insect collection, the Department of Entomology and Nematology provides a great resource. Back in 2010, distinguished professor James R. Carey led a group of students in producing short, clear, concise videos on just that: how to create an insect collection. (Many high school and college teachers assign their students to collect insects, as do some youth programs that engage in entomology.)
The entire series, totaling 11 clips ranging in length from 32 seconds to 77 seconds, can be viewed in just less than 10 minutes. "So in less than 10 minutes, someone can learn how to make an insect collection,” Carey says. The clips are tightly scripted, with an emphasis on brevity, simplicity and low cost.
The project won an award from the Entomological Society of America (ESA). Carey went on to win the ESA's 2015 Distinguished Teaching Award; the "How to Make an Insect Collection" project was just one of the many factors considered.
So, how do you make an insect collection? Easy!
Here are the videos:
Part 1:
Hand Collecting (32 seconds)
Part 2:
Using an Aspirator (34 seconds)
Part 3:
Ground Collecting (54 seconds)
Part 4:
Aquatic Collecting (58 seconds)
Part 5:
Using Nets (58 seconds)
Part 6:
Killing (51 seconds)
Part 7:
Pinning (43 seconds)
Part 8:
Point Mounting (50 seconds)
Part 9:
Labeling Specimens (48 seconds)
Part 10:
Spreading (77 seconds)
Part 11:
Storage and Display (32 seconds)


- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Teachers ask their students to make an insect collection. The project is considered a "rite of passage." However, often the students--whether they be middle school, high school or college level--don't know where to begin. Ditto for 4-H'ers enrolled in entomology projects.
What to do?
The UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology to the rescue. There, on the home page, students can access short, clear, concise videos on how to create an insect collection. They can watch and download them for free.
The story behind the story: Back in 2010, James R. Carey. professor of entomology, wanted to teach UC Davis students how to create and produce short videos that could tell the story in a minute or less. And he did just that.
The entire series, totaling 11 clips ranging in length from 32 seconds to 77 seconds, can be viewed in just less than 10 minutes.
“So in less than 10 minutes, someone can learn how to make an insect collection,” Carey says. The clips are tightly scripted, with an emphasis on brevity, simplicity and low cost.
The project continues to draw widespread interest and won an award from the Entomological Society of America. Carey, now a distinguished professor in the Department of Entomology and Nematology and active in research, teaching and public service, went on to win the ESA's 2015 national teaching award. It will be presented at the ESA's November meeting in Minnesota. The "How to Make an Insect Collection" project was just one of the many factors considered. (See his many other projects on his website.)
So, how do you make an insect collection? Easy!
Here are the videos:
Part 1:
Hand Collecting (32 seconds)
Part 2:
Using an Aspirator (34 seconds)
Part 3:
Ground Collecting (54 seconds)
Part 4:
Aquatic Collecting (58 seconds)
Part 5:
Using Nets (58 seconds)
Part 6:
Killing (51 seconds)
Part 7:
Pinning (43 seconds)
Part 8:
Point Mounting (50 seconds)
Part 9:
Labeling Specimens (48 seconds)
Part 10:
Spreading (77 seconds)
Part 11:
Storage and Display (32 seconds)
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- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Carey, widely acclaimed for his groundbreaking teaching program that centers on the strategic use of digital technology, is the newly announced recipient of the 2015 Distinguished Achievement in Teaching Award from the Entomological Society of America (ESA).
The award, presented annually to one of the 7000 members of ESA, singles out “what is deemed to be the most outstanding teacher of the year,” said ESA communications program manager Richard Levine. Carey is the second UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology to receive the honor. Diane Ullman was awarded the prize in 2014.
Carey, a 35-year member of the department, will receive the honor at the ESA's Nov. 15-18 meeting in Minneapolis, Minn.
He earlier received the 2014 Distinguished Teaching Award from the Pacific Branch of ESA, which covers 11 Western states, U.S. territories and parts of Canada and Mexico; and the UC Davis Academic Senate's 2014 Distinguished Teaching Award, an honor given to internationally recognized professors who excel at teaching, and the Academic Senate's 2015 Service Award.
Over the last five years Carey has developed a technological-savvy teaching program, a groundbreaking model for 21st Century instruction using short, concise videos. He teaches faculty, staff and students how to create the succinct videos, and how to record seminars. All are geared toward ease of learning and increased knowledge retention.
Carey himself has created 125 mini-videos. One of the most viewed is a 12-minute video covering 15 digital ideas and teaching that has drawn national and global attention. For the past several years, Carey has taught video instruction methods throughout the country and for the 9-university Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa.
His students continually thank him for motivating, encouraging and inspiring them, praising him as “best teacher” and “invaluable.” A Japanese exchange student lauded him for “his creativity of coursework, unmeasurably broad knowledge and enthusiasm for mentoring.”
His teaching philosophy? “Just as changing weather patterns cannot be understood without a deeper understanding of the drivers of climate change, students need to know the big picture to understand the pixels,” Carey said. “Students learn the need to zoom in and zoom out so that they can consider the details in the context of larger conceptual and operational frameworks.”
Carey teaches two main courses at UC Davis, including an upper-division course titled “Longevity” and a lower-division general education online course titled “Terrorism and War.” In keeping with advancing technology, Carey uses Skype each week to bring in new scientists; uses micro voice, a language miniaturization essay concept, a syllabus familiarization quiz; and paperless exams.
Carey's deep interest in the use of digital technology in academia started when he chaired the UC Academic Senate University Committee on Research Policy. He described a framework or “road map” for using video capture of seminars to increase research synergy across the 10 UC campuses. The University of California TV station, UCTV, then used this publication as a roadmap for creating the video platform, UCTV Seminars. To date, the website has tallied some 10 million seminar downloads.
One reason for the popularity of this new platform, Carey said, “is a low-tech, low-cost, and easy-to-use video recording equipment that anyone can use.” Seminars should be “public,” he said, and the tax-paying public ought to be able to view the seminars for free.
Carey is internationally known for his research in insect demography, mortality dynamics, and insect invasion biology and is considered the preeminent global authority on arthropod demography. Carey was selected a plenary speaker for the 2016 International Congress of Entomology in Orlando, Fla., where he will present “Insect Demography: A 21st Century Tour.”
He holds a bachelor of science degree in fisheries and wildlife biology and a master's degree in entomology from Iowa State University. He received his doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley in 1980 and then joined the UC Davis entomology faculty that year.
Carey is a Fellow of ESA as well as of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Gerontological Society of America, and the California Academy of Science. He has authored 250 scientific publications and three books, including the highly cited Demography for Biologists with Special Emphasis on Insects (Oxford, 1993).
Among his major accomplishments in video technology:
Write Like a Professor: The Research Term Paper (see UC Davis Library for the link). To meet the considerable challenge of teaching writing to classes of 250 students, Carey created a playlist of 13 videos.
One Minute Entomology. Carey innovated the concept of the “one minute expert” by launching student-produced videos that are 60 seconds in length. To date, students taught by Carey and two colleagues have produced more than 125 videos. In this ongoing project, students learn entomology, insect identification, succinct writing and speaking, best practices for slide presentation, peer review and teamwork.
How to Make an Insect Collection. Carey taught undergraduate and graduate students how to gather information and produce short videos for “How to Make an Insect Collection.” The award-winning project, considered by ESA as the best of its kind on the internet, includes a playlist of 11 short videos showing different aspects of insect collecting--from use of nets and hand collecting to pinning mounting and labeling.

- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
How do you begin? Where do you start?
Distinguished Professor James R. Carey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology led a class on how to do just that several years ago. Under his direction, UC Davis students crafted a playlist of 11 short videos on insect-collecting.
The project, considered the best-of-its-kind on the Internet, won an award from the 7000-member Entomological Society of America.
The videos are online but if you attend the UC Davis Picnic Day on Saturday, April 18, you can see the continuous loop of videos being played from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Room 122 of Briggs Hall, off Kleiber Hall Drive. Fliers printed with the URL and QR codes also will be available.
The entire series can be viewed in less than 10 minutes. The clips range in length from 32 seconds to 77 seconds.
“So in less than 10 minutes, someone can learn how to make an insect collection,” Carey said. The clips are tightly scripted, with an emphasis on brevity, simplicity and low cost."
Making the insect-collection module was a low tech-low cost operation partly by design. “I wanted production to be ‘low tech' so that anyone who could use a point-and-shoot camera and basic movie-editing software could produce a video clip,” Carey said. ”It needed to be low cost not only because of no funding for the project, but because the basic challenge was to produce a set of high-content-high quality video clips at virtually zero cost."
UC Davis forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey provided the introductory narration for each clip. The students chose MovieMaker software (included in the MS Office package) and Sony Vegas Movie Studio. Paul ver Wey, media production manager of the UC Davis Information Educational Technology's Academic Technology Services, taught them the basics of videography and editing; Wes Nelms gave a tutorial on the use of Vegas Movie Studio
So, stop by Briggs Hall and watch the videos on how to make an insect collection. Or access them online.
All are posted on YouTube and linked to the department's website.
Part 1:
Hand Collecting (32 seconds)
Part 2:
Using an Aspirator (34 seconds)
Part 3:
Ground Collecting (54 seconds)
Part 4:
Aquatic Collecting (58 seconds)
Part 5:
Using Nets (58 seconds)
Part 6:
Killing (51 seconds)
Part 7:
Pinning (43 seconds)
Part 8:
Point Mounting (50 seconds)
Part 9:
Labeling Specimens (48 seconds)
Part 10:
Spreading (77 seconds)
Part 11:
Storage and Display (32 seconds)
The 101st annual UC Davis Picnic Day is expected to draw as many as 100,000 visitors campuswide. The focus is on entomology at Briggs Hall and at the Bohart Museum of Entomology. Briggs Hall includes cockroach races, maggot art, honey sampling, fly-tying, a pollination pavilion and many other activities. The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, is home of nearly eight million insect specimens. On Saturday it will showcase pollination activities and provide many other events under the theme, "The Good, The Bad and the Bugly."


- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey

How did you learn how to collect, display and preserve insects?
If you look on the Internet, you'll find a few videos, but none as succinct, fast-paced and informative as the video clips on "How to Make an Insect Collection" that emerged from Professor James R. Carey's class at the UC Davis Department of Entomology.
Being a strong proponent of "information by video" and knowing that today's generation obtains much of its information that way, Carey (shown above) came up with the idea of a series of entomological "how-to" videos.
The first: "How to Make an Insect Collection."
The class that he taught last spring resulted in a series of video clips now posted on the department's website.
The entire series, totaling 11 clips ranging in length from 32 seconds to 77 seconds, can be viewed in just less than 10 minutes.
“So in less than 10 minutes, someone can learn how to make an insect collection,” Carey said. The clips are tightly scripted, with an emphasis on brevity, simplicity and low cost.
To learn how to make an insect collection, you just have to click on the titles.
Hand Collecting
Using an Aspirator
Ground Collecting
Aquatic
Using Nets
Killing
Pinning
Point Mounting
Labeling Specimens
Spreading
Storage and Display
“It was an engaging, enjoyable fulfilling and productive experience,” Carey said. The project will also serve as a model for other entomology students who wish to create their own module of “how to” videos.
Making the insect-collection module, Carey said, was a low tech-low cost operation partly by design: “I wanted production to be ‘low tech’ so that anyone who could use a point-and-shoot camera and basic movie-editing software could produce a video clip."
It needed to be low cost not only because of no funding for the project, but because the basic challenge was to produce a set of high-content-high quality video clips at virtually zero cost.
The videographers were undergraduate students Joseline Saldivar, Tylan Selby and Ralph Washington Jr., all with a strong interest in entomology; and entomology graduate students Emily Bzdyk, James Harwood, Brittany Nelms and Amy Morice.
Lights, camera, action!
Oh, where did that bug go?

