By JANE HOUIN
Ohio Correspondent

WOOSTER, Ohio — Hundreds of students from across Ohio met on the Wooster campus of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) this week to learn the creepy, crawly details of A Bug’s World.

This is the sixth year the event had been hosted on the campus.
It serves a dual purpose in providing one-of-a-kind, hands-on learning opportunities to students while concentrating researchers’ efforts into a two-day span, so they can focus energy on their primary responsibility of engaging in more than 400 agricultural research projects at any one time. During those six years, more than 5,000 students have taken part in this learning opportunity.

Faculty, staff and students of OARDC’s Department of Entomology conduct 13 different sessions, covering topics such as aquatic insects, honeybees, collecting and preserving insects, an insect cafe, insect behavior, ecology, pollination and more.

Students especially enjoy the chance to look at insects up-close using high-quality microscopes in the Critters Up Close session, in which they can compare various insect parts to common items they see every day in their schools and homes.

The Whiz-Bang Science Show by “Dr. Dave” Lohnes is a high-tech, multimedia stage show that attracts hundreds of students daily with chants of “Dr. Dave!” and audience interaction.

And no visitor can forget a visit to Café Insecta, where they learn about how insects are used as important food sources throughout the world, and even have a chance to sample fried mealworms, crickets, cookies with crickets and more.

This year, more than 800 students attended the two-day event from public, private and home schools in 17 counties.