CU students serve as envoys from world of spiders to area schoolchildren

Cayuga Heights Elementary School third grader Emily Belle watches classmate Michelle Hicks feed a cricket to a Mexican fireleg tarantula, at a spider biology presentation by Cornell senior Kate O'Hara, right. Blaine P. Friedlander Jr./Cornell News Service

By Blaine P. Friedlander Jr.

In a Cayuga Heights Elementary School third-grade class, more than 20 students crowd around a small table and crane their necks to get a better view of the Mexican fireleg tarantula. Cornell senior Kate O'Hara helps a student drop a cricket into the spider's cage. The cricket doesn't have a chance.

Eagerly the students watch. After the tarantula catches its meal, it performs a victory dance by moving in a circle, entangling the cricket in silk. "You guys are so lucky to see this!" O'Hara tells the group.

O'Hara is among 32 Cornell students who over the past five years have served as ambassadors from the world of arachnids. These envoys, trained by Linda Rayor, Cornell assistant professor of entomology, speak at Ithaca-area schools and organization meetings.

Since 1998, Rayor's Spider Outreach Program has become stronger and more popular with schools in area. "Spiders evoke a combination of horror and curiosity in people of all ages," said Rayor. "The fascination with spiders provides an entree into science education at the elementary and middle school levels. My student speakers are role models -- especially for young girls. Girls don't have to be intimidated by science, and maybe this will encourage them to consider a science career. In general, in talking to kids about spiders, these enthusiastic speakers convert arachnophobes every time."

Rayor has assembled this specialty speakers' bureau from her popular Entomology 215, Spider Biology: Life on a Silken Thread course. From this class, Rayor has recruited 26 undergraduate and six graduate students to speak to more than 200 individual groups and 7,400 people. Rayor provides resources and a Web site to help teachers incorporate spider lessons into their curriculum.

In the Cayuga Heights class, nary a yawn of boredom could be seen as the many eight-legged critters won the students' attention. O'Hara told the students how some spiders disguise themselves as bird droppings, while others spit glue to catch prey. She explained how tarantulas and other more-advanced spiders molt and hunt. And she had trouble containing her own enthusiasm about how some spiders liquefy their prey and slurp them up like a milkshake. "I want to tell you guys so many cool things," she said.

O'Hara said she loves watching children go from the "yuck -- gross" stage to feeding the spiders by the end of her presentation "This change lets us know immediately that our talk was effective," she said.

Beyond showing and telling about spiders, the Cornell students become comfortable with public speaking. "I loved working with the children to spark their interest in spiders and science in general," said junior Jeff Greyber. "Not to mention that my public speaking abilities have greatly improved."

O'Hara, who hopes to attend medical school next year, spoke at the 77th International Anesthesia Research Society meeting in New Orleans in March. A doctor approached O'Hara after her presentation and complimented her on her speaking ability, noting that "physicians normally do not speak as well as you do."

O'Hara gives credit for developing her public speaking talent to the spider program. "Maintaining audience attention and enthusiasm can be linked directly to this outreach," she said.

Last autumn, a young girl approached another Cornell ambassador, junior Rivka Shoulson, before a presentation, saying she was afraid of spiders. After the presentation, when it came time to feed the tarantulas, that same girl went over to Shoulson and tugged at her skirt. "When I looked down, she asked me in the sweetest voice if she could feed the spiders. She said, 'I'm not scared of spiders anymore,'" Shoulson recalled. "Hearing those words gave me a sense of fulfillment and made the whole program worthwhile."