Contact:

Virginia Crowe
Director of Marketing
(615) 401-5059
vcrowe@adventuresci.com

August 14, 2006 (Nashville, TN) - Sometimes the secret to getting along with your neighbors is learning the ones to befriend and the ones to avoid - especially when they have more than two legs. Adventure Science Center will explore cohabitation with crawling creatures on Saturday, August 26 during Bugs: What’s in Your Backyard, a day devoted to familiar insects who like to share our living spaces.

Visitors to Adventure Science Center will enjoy a day packed with interactive activities designed to demystify the insect world all around us, and clarify which bugs can enhance our lives and which ones are merely pests.

Bugs: What’s in Your Backyard includes presentations on poisonous and non-poisonous spiders in Tennessee; insect communications; and “Butterfly Magic,” which features live butterflies. In addition, visitors can create their own garden hat and ladybug puppet, get a microscopic look at their six-legged friends and experiment with butterfly chromatography to create their own unique color pattern for the winged insect. Kids also can make a UV bracelet to monitor the sun’s rays and learn about sun safety.

Before leaving, visitors will receive a live ladybug to take home and release in their own backyards. Ladybugs are considered beneficial to gardens as they eat aphids, a pesky plant predator.

“Insects are almost always around us, even if we don’t see them,” said Christy Whitney, Public Events Manager for ASC. “These activities will give everyone a chance to learn which insects we might want for our neighbors and which ones we’d prefer moved across town.”

All event day activities are free with regular admission to the science center and run all day.