An estimated 35,000 people visited over 100 temporary exhibits at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences on Saturday for the 20th annual BugFest.
From 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., attendees played games, created crafts and participated in activities all related to insects. Videos and presentations were scheduled throughout the day, including a main stage on Edenton Street, which featured live bands and a beekeeping workshop for participants to learn how to manage their own hives.
Maggie Leck, a freshman studying engineering, volunteered alongside other students from NC State’s chapter of Women in Science and Engineering at the Arthropod Olympics booth. This was her first time volunteering at the event.
“It’s just a really nice way to give back,” Leck said. “[BugFest] was something I used to do as a kid and it’s nice to see the other side of it.”
Attendees had the opportunity to hold live bugs including the large neon green tobacco hornworm and giant Madagascar hissing cockroaches. Curious collectors could even bring bugs to be identified at the Stump the Experts booth, hosted by the NC State entomology department.
NC State had a large representation at the event, as more than a dozen of the exhibits and presentations were hosted by departments, professors and student volunteers from the university.
Michael Ruddy and other graduate students from the NC State Department of Mathematics provided games and math puzzles involving insects at the Math Doesn’t Bug Me booth.
“We do this every year,” Ruddy said. “Math gets a bad rap with kids, we want to show them how fun it can be for them.”
One of the main attractions at the event was Cafe Insecta, in which several local restaurants and food trucks contributed to serve up dishes prepared with actual insects. Treats such as popcorn crickets were offered to visitors for free. The purpose of the cafe is to demonstrate that entomophagy, the practice of eating bugs, is not only delicious, but also has health and environmental benefits.
Exhibits around the event featured a variety of information on this year’s theme bug: the ant.
Visitors learned about zombie ants, whose behaviors are altered by mind-controlling fungi, from members of the NC State Plant Pathology Graduate Student Association. In their interactive exhibit, kids could also dress up as ants to experience how insects and fungi interact.
“I really love helping the little kids learn about this,” said Allison Anthony, a graduate student studying entomology and plant pathology. “A lot of people grow up thinking bugs are gross, but you come here and you learn a lot about them and they turn out to be really neat.”
Volunteering at the event was not just reserved for college students and adults, however. At the Dragonfly Detectives booth, fourth through eighth graders from the Daniel Center for Math and Science, a Raleigh-area after-school program, explained how they learned about performing scientific research during a recent project. Students used instruments to measure weather parameters at a nearby pond and then correlated the data with the number of dragonflies present.
Many visitors and volunteers had attended or participated in prior years. Nate Miller, a graduate student studying plant pathology, returned to the event for a second year of volunteering.
“We come every year,” Miller said.
