In reality, they didn't find anything completely different, but they ended up with lots of katydids and little grasshoppers.
They also got to try out passive entomophagy (unknowingly eating insects) and active entomophagy (consciously choosing to eat insects). This year, they were less courageous and just went for the passive entomophagy. Boooo! This just entails eating peanut butter and chocolate, so who wouldn't go for passive entomophagy? Oh well.
The coolest part of the camp was the dissection the kids got to do on the last day. Since this camp only had 4 new students (out of 20), the camp instructor was able to incorporate new lessons this year! The kids could not believe that they were able to dissect a grasshopper and a crawfish. I couldn't even believe it!! Elina said her crawfish had eggs all inside of it. Eli thought it was so neat to see inside of a huge grasshopper. What a great experience!
Elina also finally got her bug box back. She entered her bug box into a big bug collection competition at A&M and she actually won 1st place for the Junior Division! It was awesome! So she also received a plaque at the camp.
The only downside to the camp was the presence of chiggers. Eli's friend did the camp the week before and got so many chigger bites. Have you ever had a chigger bite? They itch so badly and they love to be in the groin area. It's not pleasant at all. So I decided to be all prepared. I got special spray for the kids' clothes and I would put it on their clothes the night before so it would be dry for them to wear the next day. That's how toxic this stuff was, folks. You can't spray it on your clothes while you are wearing them! Then I made the kids wear long pants and long-sleeve shirts in the 100F weather. I told them that whenever they went to collect, they needed to tuck their shirts into their pants and to tuck their pant bottoms into their socks. I know, I'm crazy! They looked completely dorky. But there was no way I wanted them to come home with 50 chigger bites! (A volunteer from the previous week's camp had more then 80 bites all over her body!!) And on top of all this, I sprayed them with toxic Off, too. I'm glad to say Elina only ended up with 2 bites and Eli had about 12. The only reason he got his bites was because on Day 2, he forgot to tuck his shirt in! Poor boy. They were in his groin area and he was suffering pretty badly. I can't even imagine if he had more! I'm glad we were prepared though!
Despite the chiggers, the kids can't wait to go to bug camp again next year!
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