The Winning Bugs for 2009!
 

Praying Mantis Battiest Elementary, Battiest	Sphnyx Moth East Elementary, Anadarko	Red Leg Tip Centipede Locust Grove Learning Center, Locust Grove	Robber Fly Newcastle Middle School, Newcastle

The Ugly Bug Contest began in 1997 as a component of the Oklahoma Microscopy Society (OMS) outreach program, called 'SCOPE. The goal of 'SCOPE as well as the Ugly Bug Contest is "to promote the awareness and usage of microscopy; as its own science, as an element of scientific literacy, and as a tool for stimulating scientific curiosity and discovery." To that end, we began in 1995 to provide hands-on microscopy curriculum kits, including microscopy videotapes and books, to elementary school teachers in areas where OMS members live and work. A society member would available for consultation and classroom visits and offer follow-up tours to their own microscopy laboratories. Demand for the kits soon increased beyond our ability to staff and fund them, so we looked for a project that would allow us to reach many more classrooms. Inspiration struck when we heard about an "Ugly Bug Contest", run by Marilee Sellers of Northern Arizona University as part of the Flagstaff Festival of Science. We adapted her format for a state-wide contest, and in 1997 ran a pilot, inviting 70 schools to participate. While ‘SCOPE provides microscopy aid to schools near OMS members, the Ugly Bug Contest has the potential to reach all of the elementary schools in Oklahoma , public and private. The Ugly Bug Contest has since become the primary educational outreach program for the society. Now, yearly, every elementary school in the state is invited to enter in hopes of winning the microscopes and other microscopy learning materials offered as prizes. Students collect, identify, and write a life history of their bug, then hold an in-school contest to select the “ugliest” bug to enter in the OMS contest. Members of the society photograph the bugs submitted from each school in a scanning electron microscope and winning bugs are selected at the OMS fall meeting. A high quality optical microscope is presented to the winning school(s) by an OMS member along with a hands-on presentation developed to introduce students to microscopy. The Ugly Bug contest has become a very successful program for OMS and has earned not only national, but international recognition along the way. Enthusiasm from all involved in the contest, from the OMS volunteers to the students, remains high and OMS sees the Ugly Bug Contest continuing to be an annual event for years to come.