Our visits with the experts

Here are some historical captures of events from the recent past :)

Dr. Meyer in his office showing R, E, and D one his insect trays

 Dr. Meyer is an entymologist at the Christopher Newport  University. He met with part of the E.I crew,  answering all their questions on both bug and bat behaviors. 
      Then Dr. Meyer showed the students some of his insect collection, and talked about proper archiving and the need for insect repellent tabs in your insect boards.
       

 

  Dr. Meyer helped the EI team work out the size of the trough they wanted for the bats, learned about edging it to prevent other animals form using it and during that discussion Dylan came up with the  idea for bright lights to attract the bats to the tough. 

Dr. Judy M meet with the kids in the lobby of the Va Living Museum to discuss their latest idea for the White Nose Syndrome cure for bats.  It's wasn't great news at the start, as the kids learned their latest idea of using the anti-fungal additive to a water trough wasn't going to work.  But the kids had done a lot of research on WNS and kept asking questions until it occurred to Ezra to use one of their ideas (the aerosol spray concept) to hold a vaccine to reach the bats as they came out of the cave.  Turns out a Geomyces vaccine is one of the better ideas researchers have, but they don't have a good delivery method.
  The kids regrouped after thanking Dr. Judy and voted to ditch the trough and bright lights from their cure concept.   They liked the idea of spraying the cure.  Robert and Olivia mentioned using an ultrasonic sensor to turn on and off the spray as the bats came in and out.  Abby added that it could be set on a timer so it didn't go off during the day when other animals might go in or out of the caves.  Ezra liked the idea of the timer and, knowing that bats fly at dusk, suggested it should be connected remotely to the weather stations so that the timer would adjust to the growing and shrinking hours of daylight.
  A new idea is born and really best of all, the new idea and change of cure slipped into the practiced skit quite nicely.  A lot of participants lines didn't have to change at all.  Great research guys.