Children of the Revolution

To be a good scientist you always have to be asking questions. If you want to be a good ecologist you have to be nosey!! What we know about the natural world ultimately stems from ecologists sticking their nose in where it isn’t always welcome. 

By watching plants and animals we have come to learn so much about the diversity of life on our planet and we are only begging to understand the complexities. Be that the relationships between pollinators and plants, weird behaviours of animals or the structure of a honeybee hive. Like all sciences the more we learn about nature the more ecologists appreciate how little we know. So the good news is there is plenty more to learn!!!!!

This is just one of the things Sex Bugs & Rock & Roll is encouraging with our activities. Whether it’s “The magical world of mushrooms” or “whose poo”, it's all about picking things up, getting your face in and having a good old nose about what’s going on. These quick, easy 1-minute games have helped to encourage the curiosity we all have within us and which is so important to science. 

Our aim was to get out and spread the word about the good work that ecologists are doing - and it was actually a lot easier than any of us could have expected. People have been fascinated with Sex & Bugs and more often than not wanted more than we could give them. Adults truly understand the importance of what we do and the kids appreciate how cool it is! I would say that every person who visited the tent left with at least one new piece of trivia that will get wiped out down the pub. But the vast majority leave with much more: a desire to find out more, in most cases the answers to questions we the team couldn’t answer!!!

Finally on behalf of the Sex & Bugs roadies I feel an apology is in order. To all the parents out there who brought their children into our big blue tent; it wasn’t your fault, you weren’t to know, you thought this was just another run-of-the-mill activity tent (colouring in, pretty pictures, etc.), but it wasn’t!!!! I bet you had no idea that many weeks on from your fun filled weekend you would still be receiving creepy crawlies and impossible questions. “Do bees sleep?” “What does worm poo look like?” “Can fish fart?” 

The truth is these are important questions that we don’t yet know the answer too. Rest assured Mums and Dads, it's probably how Attenborough and Darwin started and they didn’t do too badly.

    

Post by Frazer Bird