 Welcome to our latest episode of STEM Chat. Today we are talking about all of our insect friends. That's right. And a lot of people think bugs and insects are icky, but our insects icky? She just said she doesn't think so. That's right. Our little bug friend there is telling us the truth and bugs are your friends. And so what better time than the summer to explore all kinds of bugs and insects out there and we're going to talk more about it in this episode. The reasons that we wanted to talk about bugs and insects this month is because the cicadas are emerging. Yeah, and these are the 17-year cicadas, right? Wow, they've been asleep for 17 years. They have been underground for 17 years since 2004. And this batch is called the brood 10. So right now the cicadas are really active and it's on the east coast and in some of the southern states. So I've never seen them since I'm in California. But it's pretty fascinating to know that they have been living underground for 17 years and emerge right now. I think I saw them 17 years ago when I was in college because I was living in Rhode Island at the time. And I remember all of their, I guess, the exoskeletons were all on the ground everywhere. Oh, right. And I think your dad, he's a photographer. He got a bunch of the exoskeletons and took a photo. Yeah, I think he got his friend must have sent him some in the mail or something. Yeah, that's super cool. So if you search up the 17-year cicadas in Google, you'll get all these crazy news headlines. You can see some examples here. And people are having fun. And what's crazy is if you look on the little radar screen there, you can actually see it from Weather System radar that it's the green area that's kind of near Washington DC. And that is like millions of cicadas flying in that area. It's actually shown up on radar. But it's the green thing. Yeah. And so you can see, cicada mania has like a whole outline of all the next versions of when the other broods will be coming out again. So the next time they come out, it'll be brood 13. And that's in 2024. But if you look down on the ground, if you're in the right area, you can see little holes. Those are the holes made by the cicada. And they will be coming out from those holes. So apparently right now, season, if you take a look, they may be out in your area. There's actually a few apps that cicada safari that you can check and see if there's any cicadas near you. And what's fun is this is going to be all done by the 4th of July. By the time it's 4th of July, the eggs will be hatched. And they will be burying underground. And they will come back from their 17 years. That's amazing. Well, if we don't catch it this time over, we'll get it 17 years from now. Exactly. We picked up some cute cicadia art from an artist. I think you pronounce her name as Leanne Flug. But I really like that she does all sorts of adorable illustrations. Here's my card over here. That's really cute. You know what's cool is the cicadias actually kind of look like aliens? Oh, yeah, they do. People are really afraid of how they are. But they're actually really harmless. And I read in the New York Times that cats and dogs are starting to eat them. And they're going to the emergency room. Oh, wow. But they're in the door. Let's say it's OK. They're not poisonous or anything. So who knew, right? Yeah. We've been having fun with some bugs at home. And we got this insect lure home butterfly kit. Oh, wow. That's really cool. Yeah. They send you a cup of caterpillars. And then you grow them from the caterpillars into the butterflies. And you get to see the whole process. Yeah. So this is what the kit looks like. It has a little butterfly cage in it. And then you can see the chrysalises are there. This is a little bit later on. And here's what we actually got in the mail. We got this cup of caterpillars. And they started very small. They grow so quickly. Like every single day, you can look and see the difference in size. They're really eating a lot. What was the time process for this? I think it took like, well, every time it's dark is one day on here. So I want to say it took about a week or so. And then they formed their chrysalis. And then another week, they were in the chrysalis. And then they emerged and became butterflies. But look at how big they are. Wow. That's amazing. And this is a painted lady. These are the caterpillars for a painted lady butterfly. You know what's cool is I didn't realize it. So butterflies, they have chrysalises. And moths do cocoons. There's two different names for them. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Because actually, the chrysalis is made from the proteins of the caterpillars. And they're actually shedding. They're completely morphing into a butterfly. And they're shedding their caterpillars. Yeah, we saw them wig a lot of their caterpillar skin. And then they had a new skin underneath. And then they would wait. Oh, yeah. And you see these painted ladies, the caterpillars do a J shape. And you can see that the one where you pause there, they start doing that to some other chrysalis. And when they shake, it's actually to help scare away predators and birds from feeding them. Oh, like when it's a chrysalis? Actually, I have a video of that, too. Because so we were moving. We were moving the chrysalises into the butterfly cage. And then one of them just started shaking on its own. And I was wondering why. But I thought it was kind of neat, because I thought it would just be asleep when it was in the chrysalis. It probably felt like there was going to be danger coming and wanted to share it to scare you away. So how did your girls like the whole experience of seeing like the chrysalis to butterfly? Oh, they loved it. And actually, we wound up doing it twice, because it was like a lot of fun after we grew them. They released them at the park. And you could hold the butterfly and let it go. Oh, that's nice. So we wound up going back and buying another two cups of caterpillars after the first round was done. And these painted lady butterflies are so beautiful. What did you feed them? Because they like to eat a lot of fruit, right? Yeah, we cut up some apple slices and put it in there. They had also suggested putting sugar water in, but they didn't eat it at all. Oh, interesting. Yeah. They like the natural food. Yeah, I guess they like the natural thing. And then my daughter found some flowers at the park. So they were also drinking the nectar from the flowers. So we were kind of inspired by the butterflies in the butterfly cage. And so for my daughter's birthday celebration, she decided that she wanted to wear these giant butterfly wings and bounce around on a trampoline in her own version of a butterfly cave with her friends. Oh, that's fun. That's a great idea. Yeah, we just got, we have these, it was like big mylar balloons and put some elastic straps on them for the girls. But it was a lot of fun. They had a really good time. And it was kind of neat. So, you know, she's really into bugs. So we did a bug theme party and we got these cute lady bug stools from the Dysos store. Oh, I love that. You know, I think there's something so adorable about ladybugs. And I didn't realize, but like ladybugs aren't actually bugs. They're actually part of the beetle family. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, and they are, you know, they're harmless. They're beautiful. And there's 400 different kinds of species just in North America. Didn't you, and I remember you back in the day, you sent me a long time ago, you had your own collection of ladybug pins and we got one and they were so pretty just to put on your, on your clothing. Yeah, I did. Cause actually, did you know that ladybugs come in all different colors? I knew from you many years ago. I had never known. And until we got the one that was really pretty, it was like gray and black with the polka dots. And it was just so adorable. Okay, yeah. So speaking of ladybugs, we also have this ladybug backpack that my daughter really likes a lot. Oh, that's adorable. Yeah. I've never seen this. It's heavy or light? No, it's really light and it has, I don't know, some pockets inside and stuff. It's just really cute. I love it. I found this book by Christopher Marley that has really beautiful pictures of insects. And it was kind of like the introduction from my toddler to the world of insects. And I guess also my older daughter too. Okay, could you please hit play? Thank you. So I really liked it because the photographs were so beautiful. Usually he travels the world and finds beautiful insects and then organizes them in these sort of collages. And they're just gorgeous. They have beautiful colors and interesting textures. And they're just very interesting, like the stick bug here. There's all sorts of bugs that you don't even really know or imagine existing. It's so beautiful. I love how you are so on top of finding these amazing artists that do these wonderful things with nature. It's gorgeous. Yeah, I like this one because I feel like it gives a good first impression of bugs. Yeah, you see the beauty of them and not like the character thinking they're icky or something. Yeah, this was kind of like a bug gateway. But afterward, my younger daughter now is really into bugs and is obsessed after we looked through the book. And I really like these leaf bugs. I love leaf bugs. It's so amazing how through evolution they mimic nature and actual leaves. And there's a 50 different species and some of them actually include the little holes in leaves so as if they're an actual leaf. Oh, wow, that's so neat. It's like a pretend damage bug. Exactly, isn't that funny? That's really nice. That's so neat. Very accurate. We got these acrylic encased bugs and they're actually real bugs that are in acrylic blocks. And my toddler really like comparing them to the book. Here she has the rhinoceros beetle and it was really neat because the book had all different, like ones that had all different horn patterns. And so she was able to find one that was similar to the beetle that she has. That's amazing because it looks exactly like the book. Yeah, it does. Was it amazing for her to see? Oh yeah, she was like really excited and making the acrylic beetle talk to the book beetle. Oh yeah, I was fascinated by the rhinoceros beetle and I looked it up and the males are the only ones with the horns and they actually use it only to fight with other males for territory or dig underground. And that's all it's used for and they're pretty harmless even though they look very intimidating. Yeah, that's really neat. Well, yeah, I guess I wouldn't know what to think if I saw one. I know. Yeah, it's really cool to see the size of that, the real one that your daughter has in her hand. It's pretty, pretty sizey. It's about like two and a half, three inches, right? Oh yeah, it is pretty big. I think it is three inches. Three inches, yeah. That's amazing. Yeah, so that's interesting because I think the photo in the book that she's holding, they're kind of like life-sized photos. Yeah. So it's really nice. You can compare. Let's see, and then she was also looking at the green chaffer beetle over here which they had in the book and she has this one. But we also have a whole set that my aunt and uncle bought for her. These aren't in the tray in the correct order. Oh wow. But after we saw this in the book it has these very close up pictures of the texture on the beetle's skin. So we looked at it with our pocket microscope and we're able to find a similar texture. Yeah, it's amazing to see, right? Yeah. In that pocket microscope. Yeah, it was easy. You just kind of like set it on top of the acrylic block. It's a little difficult because I don't know if you can see here but there's like a lot of space on the top of the block. They have to set it on the side where the bug is close to the surface. Oh, that's cool. But then you can see a lot of different things and here's a look at some of the microscope views. We have a little clip so you can clip your cell phone onto the pocket microscope and then she just looks at it in the pocket. I'm sorry, on the cell phone screen. That's easier for them to see it's larger. Yeah, it is. And she's able to kind of like move it around and focus it herself too. But it's nice that it stands on because I can't imagine her like handling a real beetle specimen. This one you can drop and it's okay. Yeah, that's true. It's less delicate too. Yeah, this is really cool. Oh, and then these are views of the butterfly that we have. He has a little bit of fur on him. I think, I think this one's the leg. Oh, wow. So you have your budding entomologist. Yes, I do. She's always looking for bugs whenever we're out. And if I killed a bug recently in our apartment like a pest type bug, if she was very upset, she was like, I wanted to look at that one, mommy. Get the microscope. That's so cute. So what are these? Oh, so we also got, these are some beetle toys from Japan. And they're all different sorts of binoceros and stag beetles. I guess, I think they're actually life size because they're about the same size as this acrylic beetle. I'm sorry, this beetle that's in the acrylic. Oh, yeah. It's really cool because it's not so like, they don't look so fake, rubbery. Like, you know, the colors are kind of more true and accurate and they look really cute. Yeah, that's right. It's nice cause she can play with them with her other toys. She actually plays with the acrylic beetles and then these beetles and her like princess dolls and the microscope. This was the princess who's had a science lab and the beetles are their friends and they like examine and take pictures of the acrylic beetles. It's a whole thing in the little mushroom house. I mean, that's really fun that she's actually, you know, bringing her science into her imaginative to play. Yeah, here, let me show you the whole beetle set. I'll switch back to the regular screen. Yeah, so. This is the full set over here. Oh, that looks so cool. You can take them out. But this one, it was neat cause there's these metallic beetles and this is her favorite. Her name is Sunshine and then this is Sunshine's sister, Moon. Oh, that looks really good. The whole story of them, they all play together. They look really realistic. It's really cool to see. Yeah, I actually, and there's these forums online, I guess for like people talk about realistic animal toys and so they said that the molds for these were very good. They said the colors are like kind of realistic but they're a very good price. So people are like, oh, it's like really nice for the price. No, that's cool. So how do you search things on Amazon Japan when you search for the stuff? Cause you're able to search in English, right? Yeah, I have the, you can turn on, there's an English option you can turn on. And then I guess I kind of like click around a lot. There's a lot of blind clicking, but then I found this set and I looked up, you know, it has like the website on the picture of the box. And so I looked it up and people had talked about it in the toy forum. Like, you know, the various toy forums online. And so it looked like it was a good one. That's cool. And I think it came pretty fast for you. Yeah, it did. It came in, it only in like four days. I mean, we're in New York cities. I don't know if it's... I had the same experience though. I'm in California and I ordered some craft books, Japanese craft books and it came within the matter like less than a week. I basically... That's amazing. Yeah, that's really cool. We'll have a link below for everyone so you can see what Diana got. Yeah, and maybe get some for yourself or your kids. Let's see, oh, and another thing, speaking of things from Amazon Japan, we also got, since it's summer, we got this really large beetle floaty. Ooh, I love it. And the pool. It's time for the pool. Yeah, but she also plays with it in the house and like rides it around and makes like a bed and different things for it. So it's kind of like her little, not little, her like giant beetle friend. Oh wow, so she's full on in the beetle world right now. Yeah. It's really cute. I love that, it's so different. We're so used to seeing like donuts or unicorns and just to see like a big beetle is kind of fun in the pool. Yeah, yeah, and you know, it was nice because it's actually kind of like a cute beetle float. It's not like mean or scary looking. So I feel like that's part of why it's kind of nice and it's our favorite color, which is yellow. So that's nice. So lately I've been really obsessed with bees and thanks in no part to my friend Heather who lives in Southern California and has a wonderful garden and she'll send me almost every day cute little videos of bees. Why don't you play this one? And it's so amazing because I think kids for the most part and even adults we're so afraid of bees because we don't want to get stung or you know, get hurt from, you know, you hear them buzzing and it's kind of like intimidating but they're so amazing and they are the only insects we get food from because they make honey and we eat honey. That's the only insect that we actually, you know eat what they make. And they are really busy from all day. I've noticed like, you know, 7 30 at night outside of my house that they are still busy collecting pollen for the day. And my friend Heather calls them pollen pants because they actually collect the pollen in their lake and so towards the end of the day you can see they're actually like full like, you know full pants of pollen covering their legs and they're ready to take it back to their home to turn it into honey. Wow. Yeah. I didn't think about it, but that's true. We don't have collect food from any other insects. Yeah. And it's so true. I know they're scary but I think if you don't bother them, they're fine. And we've actually, you know my daughter was really afraid of bees before but it was slowly through these videos and we'll like explore them. They're right outside our front door and you can just see them all. There's so many different kinds of bees too. And so we're not that scared anymore to look at them. And so taking a closer look we can see how important bees are to the ecosystem of nature as well. That's really neat. So now's the time for our favorite things and it's all bug and insect related. While we're on the topic of bees I wanted to share my new honeycomb bee pan. It's from Nordicware. And you can make these really cute pull apart honeycomb cakes. Oh, that looks good. Yeah. I want to make it. I want to use it to make some brioche pull apart sandwiches and like make each little sandwich in each of the honeycombs and then put some like ham and Gruyere in it. Oh, that sounds delicious. That's so cute. I love that there's this like pan like that. Yeah, I like that it's gold too. I feel like I can display it. Oh yeah, it's really pretty. So where I live I'm more in the countryside and we have a lot of bugs and a lot of beetles. And on our next door a lot of neighbors always ask like every other day what is this bug? What is this, you know, what is this insect? I don't know, you know, they kind of freaked out. And so one of my neighbors yesterday posted about this big black beetle. And so I was really curious. So I took this app I have called Seek. We mentioned it before in one of our episodes but it's a very easy app. And all you do is you can, you know use the camera app here and just roll it over the actual bug or a photo of the bug. And then they'll tell you what it is. So I found out it was a devil's coach horse beetle which actually when they get scared they will curl their tail up like a scorpion. Oh wow. They're not poisonous. They do have a pain, they can get aggressive and have a painful bite. So I always tell my neighbors, hey, get the Seek app because we have so much nature around us. It's always, we're always on a walk and you always, we see beetles on the ground everywhere. So we always want to like take our phone and like look and see what their names are and what they're about. So, and we actually downloaded the app too because, and my daughter is actually always asking whenever we see a bug, she's like, look it up and see what it is. Now our bugs aren't very interesting because we're in the city. So this one over here is a sidewalk mite. Oh, that's cool though. But it was still fun to be able to identify what it was. That's great. And it works for birds too, so. Oh neat, we'll have to try some other animals. I think we actually, we tried it on the flowers because we were trying to find some flowers for our butterflies and I didn't know which ones they would like. So we were doing it at the flower shop. Oh, that's, oh, that's cool at the flower shop too. You can do it anywhere for anything. Yeah, we didn't know what the different ones were. My older daughter has been making these paper insects and we bought, we got another thing off of Amazon, just here we got an insect book and you punch all these insects out and then you can tape and glue them to assemble them together. Oh, that's cool, that's not too hard, right? Yeah, no, it's not too hard and she just, she spends hours doing it. Oh wow, another cool Amazon Japan find. Very cool, they're really pretty, like very intricate, like detailed. Yeah, I actually, I hadn't seen something with such beautiful bugs in it that were kind of like a craft activity, so that was really neat. I think we're gonna try and hang some of them on our wall afterward. Oh, that sounds cool. And then last, we have these neat books that Natalie found. Yeah, so one of the cool things that we're gonna be doing on StemChat is reviewing new books. And so these two books just came out and they're board books on nature. This is Beehive and you can see the different layers. It's great for toddlers and younger kids who can't even really read, but they're able to look at all the pictures and see all the intricate worlds of how bees live. Same for ants, huh, right? Yeah, yeah. I was always fascinated when I was a kid, like when ants don't have their little home inside. Yeah, and they're the worker ants and everything. It's amazing to see, so this is a great segue into what we're gonna be doing this summer. This summer, Diane and I are going to show you some of our favorite summer books, summer activity books, sticker books, everything. What'd you say? Art books. Art books, yes, exactly. Diane is so good at finding art books that relate to STEM. So we hope to get that up for you sometime this summer in July and we will be filming a full episode later on in the fall. So in the summer, you'll have to catch us with our little segments and our book series on our website and our newsletter. Yes, that's our other exciting new news. So with some exciting news, we have a new website, stemchatclub.com and you can go there and sign up for our newsletter, which we'll be sending out every month. And the cool thing is we'll also let you know when we have a new episode launching or any news, our summer reading STEM books and activity books, as well as free printables. And so the butterfly PDF we mentioned in the last episode will actually be available. Once you sign up right away, you'll be able to download it and print it out for your kids to cut out and make their butterfly letter. Or for you if you want. Exactly. So thank you. I hope you guys have a great summer and we'll see you for full episode again in the fall. Till then, join us on our social media, sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Instagram at stemchat and we'll see you guys soon. Bye.