The Australian summer is here and insects are buzzing on the screen in Windows and there are bugs in the computer. Yes, the CSIRO’s acclaimed Insects CD now comes in a Windows version ($99, 03 4187333). It came out earlier on Apple (coddling moths all over the place).
It is an exquisite use of multi-media. Watch the dung beetle roll up precious bits of dung. Listen to the female mosquito without reaching for the Aeroguard. Zoom in on the eye of a moth with an electron microscope.
In the increasing array of junk games for kids in the CD range, the CSIRO’s Insects is an educational joy.
The CD contains 250 photographs; six documentary movies on heroes and villains in the insect world, a score (when will the puns stop) of insect sounds; details on collecting and identifying; 10 quizzes and a goodly amount of text.
This is not a coffee-table book on a CD; it uses multi-media intelligently. For an extra $10 there are some teachers’ notes.
The raw material came from the Australian National Insect Collection managed by the CSIRO’s division of entomology in Canberra. The CSIRO hopes to crack the world market with it.
I’m looking forward to CDs on fungi; flowering plants; trees; geology and all the other things the CSIRO pokes and prods at.