Skip to content
Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words · Omaha, NE

Why I love bugs

A bee crawling over the yellow centre of a wildflower while pollinating it on Kennedy Space Center property. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Insects" page — read by families in Omaha, NE.
A bee crawling over the yellow centre of a wildflower while pollinating it on Kennedy Space Center property. NASA · Public domain
  • There are more of them than anything else.
  • Six legs, and it works incredibly well.
  • Some of them change into something completely different.

You can love bugs in Omaha.

What it really is

Insects are the most numerous and varied animals on earth.

Three things to try today

  1. Find three different bugs in one hour.
  2. Count the legs on each.
  3. Find one that is not an insect.

For the grown-up reading this

Nobody has to talk a child into liking bugs. They have to not talk them out of it. The Omaha, NE-IA metro area has about 1,009,836 residents, ranking 56th in the country.

The leg count is a real key. Six is an insect; eight is not.

If the kid who loves this is a girl

Read what one popular teacher said to one little girl who took out the classroom trash without being asked — and what that girl did with the rest of her life.

Girls are great at math — Omaha, NE →

Love something else too

A scientist looks through a microscope at human breast cancer cells in a cell bioassay laboratory, with an automated liquid handling robot behind her. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Medicine" page — read by families in Omaha, NE.Why I love doctorsAstronaut Kate Rubins holds a handheld DNA sequencer while running a gene sequencing experiment aboard the space station. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Genetics" page — read by families in Omaha, NE.Why I love DNAAstronaut Ricky Arnold processes swab samples of microbes collected from space station surfaces at a work station. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Germs" page — read by families in Omaha, NE.Why I love germsA research laboratory seen from outside through a glass window, with a scientist inside preparing samples for analysis. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Science" page — read by families in Omaha, NE.Why I love scienceA wide-angle view of the flight control room of NASA's Mission Control Center, filled with rows of consoles and display screens. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Technology" page — read by families in Omaha, NE.Why I love technologyLong rows of black cabinets housing the Discover supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Computers" page — read by families in Omaha, NE.Why I love computersTwo small AstroPi Raspberry Pi computers with camera modules floating in the Columbus laboratory of the space station. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Coding" page — read by families in Omaha, NE.Why I love codingA close-up of one row of the Discover supercomputer, showing about 2,000 processors stacked in cabinets with cabling. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Data" page — read by families in Omaha, NE.Why I love data

Near Omaha

Why I love bugs, everywhere in the US · All things to love · STEM jobs you could do · Summer camps in Omaha