“We need to be more conversant with it because science is in our lives. It's in everything. It's in the food we eat. It's in the air we breathe. It's everywhere.” -Alan Alda
Adventures of Antonia: The Book
A small adventure, born in science, Adventures of Antonia tells the story of Antonia the leaf cutter ant, a queen in waiting. But does she know what it takes to be queen of her own colony? Join Antonia in this heartwarming adventure of growth and adventure. In the story, young readers will learn about the basic biology behind these amazing animals, and explore concepts relating to genetics, epigenetics, ecology, and entomology.
Adventures of Antonia: Video Game
Have you ever wanted to explore an ant colony? Well now you can! Take control of Antonia as you relive the adventure of the Adventures of Antonia book in this unique 3D platformer, with a strong emphasis on biology, genetics, animal behavior, and more! The Adventures of Antonia has already been featured in the keynote presentation in the 3D Platformers Direct 2021 conference. Coming soon to steam and the Nintendo switch.
Twitch
Join us on Twitch, where we chat, watch videos, and play games, all while exploring the wild and breathtaking biology that is all-around us. Whether it is a new discovery or a science rabbit hole we fell down, we always have a great time sharing our love of science with our curious and welcoming Twitch community.
School Visits
Whatever the grade level, we love being invited into the classroom to chat and do experiments! It could be AP biology or elementary school science club, there is always something that the ants (or our other model organisms) can teach us.
For the past two years, we have been going on virtual school visits which has allowed us to interact with a greater range of schools. While we intend to continue our virtual work, we hope to be doing local in-person visits as soon as it is safe to do so.
Science Art
Science can be romantic and beautiful; the knowledge about the workings of the world around us can inspire awe and curiosity. To us, science goes hand-in-hand with art, together being able to facilitate communication and engage the imagination.
Art is an essential aspect of our projects at SciAnts, as we develop our cast of Science Communication Characters, photograph natural events, and collect images for our research. We try to share and talk about our work as much as possible, some of it you can see on our gallery page.
Discovery of a new ant species!
The incredible citizen scientists on Twitch caught the first glimpse of an unknown parasitic ant species while we were live streaming the leaf cutter colony! With out their help we might have missed it!
Check out our 24/7 ant stream.
ChillingWithSciAnts
Citizen Science Initiatives
Science is for everyone! Here at SciAnts we believe that you don’t need to be a classically trained scientist to make valuable contributions to research. Citizen scientists are a largely under appreciated resource, even though time and again their observations have lead to important research discoveries. Creating platforms and programs where we can facilitate this mutually beneficial participation is one of our long term goals. We are currently writing grants to help support some of our initiatives that are still in their infancy.
Check back in for updates, or reach out to us on Twitch to learn more!