Bugs and kids go well together.
Take the Vacaville Museum Guild's annual Children's Party, set from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Aug. 6 in the museum courtyard.
In addition to all the fun and games, and the extensive arts and crafts activities, the kids--ages 3 to 9--will get acquainted with honey bees, native bees, bumble bees, dragonflies and more.
The UC Davis-based California Master Beekeeper Program (CAMBP), the UC Davis Bee Haven, and the Bohart Museum of Entomology will be there to introduce honey bees and other insects to the kids.
CAMBP and the Bee Haven will join to provide a bee observation hive, native bee specimens, and assorted arts and crafts. The scientists will hand out honey straws donated by The Hive of Woodland.
The Bohart Museum, home of a global collection of eight million insect specimens, will showcase "Oh my" drawers of specimens, such as bumble bees, butterflies, dragonflies and more. At the Bohart's live petting zoo, the kids can hold Madagascar hissing cockroaches (they hiss as a defensive measure), stick insects (aka walking sticks), and tomato or tobacco hornworms.
The "bee people" tabling at the event will be Kian Nikzad, co-program manager of CAMBP; Samantha "Sam" Murray, education and garden coordinator of the UC Davis Bee Haven; and Kate Tauzer and Rick Moehrke of CAMBP. They will bring a bee observation hive, deep hive box with photographs of bees; two microscopes with petri dishes and samples of bees an mites; 3D print-outs of mites, small hive beetles and honey comb. There also will be a headband antennae craft activity, kids' handouts, and a seed cookie-making station.
Oh, to be a kid again!
The Vacaville Museum Guild has hosted this annual event since 1984. Georgann Gebers, assisted by outgoing chair Pam King, chairs this year's children's party. Pat Zetah is the outgoing guild president. Clara Dawson serves as the executive director of the museum, which covers the arts and culture of Solano County. In fact, the museum's mission is to explore history, connect community, and cultivate a future inspired by arts and culture.
And what a welcoming way to introduce kids to bugs! After all, as the late American biologist, entomologist, naturalist and ecologist E. O. Wilson said: insects are “the little things that run the world." Wilson was referring to the disproportionate role that insects and other invertebrates play in food webs, ecosystem services, and generating and maintaining biological diversity.
Go, bugs!
(See more information about the children's event on the Vacaville Museum's social media sites)
Cover image: A stick insect (aka walking stick) at the Bohart Museum of Entomology (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)