This past fall as part of the Ecophysiology Club, I attended the Virginia Science Festivals in Blacksburg, VA and Roanoke, VA with the hopes of inspiring young scientists. Our table outlined one of the research projects taking place at Radford University using royal jelly on Madagascar hissing cockroaches. It was a great deal of fun showing the kids the roaches and the science behind what we were doing. It was also great practice to explain things in a way they could not only understand but enjoy. It was the first year of hopefully many that RU will be attending the VA Science festival.
As a kid I was always interested in science, but often felt that concepts were oversimplified or never explained. Going to the Science and History Museum growing up was always fun and hands on, and though I remember many of the activities, I never understood how they worked. So coming into the Science Festival, I made it my personal goal to try and not only show the kids cool bugs, but to also share some of the science (I admit the roaches were a good hook). I found it most difficult to not only simplify the concepts, but to say it in a concise enough way that you kept the children's attention. There was a lot of stimulus and it was easy for the kids to jump from one presentation to another, so we had to grab them quick.