Written by Lena Lancastle, Education and Outreach Officer
In May, UKPN Education and Outreach team hosted a stall at the outreach event Bug
Fest, which is jointly organised and hosted by the Sheffield Botanical Gardens and
PhD students at the University of Sheffield. The event aims to showcase interesting
bugs and insects as well as the research going into them at the University.
The stall UKPN hosted, ‘Polar bugs!’, displayed the insect and invertebrate life
present in the Polar regions. This included the Antarctic midge (the only insect in
Antarctica!), the Arctic bumblebee and, as many people were discovering for the first
time – all of the mosquitoes that are present in the Arctic.
It was a great event filled with kids eager to learn, some of them hearing about the
Polar regions for the first time. Adults and children both were surprised to hear that
the Arctic in particular hosts a large number of insects, and they had fun trying to
guess the Polar insects apart from their warmer climate relatives (hint: they’re
normally fluffier or darker in colour).
In it’s third year now, Bug Fest has seen attendance numbers increase year on year,
with over 1200 people attending the last event in May. This showcases the
importance of local outreach events for engaging members of the public and that the
interest for them is consistently on the rise. Being able to link with an event that
many people wouldn’t normally associate with Polar topics is also a great way to
showcase the diversity of the Polar regions and bring Polar to people who wouldn’t
necessarily find it otherwise! We would like to thank the organisers of Bug Fest for
including UKPN in their great event.
