This science lesson practically crawled out and bit us

A few weeks ago, we were doing yard work at my in-laws' house.  Noah was in the backyard and saw something dead, floating in the pond.  It was this:

(Unfortunately, I didn't put anything in the picture next to it to give you an idea of it's size.  It is sitting on a regular napkin.  It's about 2 1/2 inches long.)

This is the grossest bug I have ever seen.  It's called the Dark Jerusalem Cricket or Creepy, as Noah named it.  When I saw it, I decided there was only one thing to do...fish it out and keep it!  Well, maybe not the "keep it" part.  I did fish it out though.  

We had just learned not too long before that our local kids museum has a trading post.  They take things kids find in nature, ask them questions about it, and award points that can be used to get some neat things.  We did keep the bug long enough to do some research and dry it out, so the kids could trade it in.  In case you're wondering, it smelled really bad, so I kept it outside while it was drying.

I don't remember much about Creepy.  The kids were the ones taking the notes and really internalizing the information.  I do remember two important things, though.  We were able to identify it as male, which I thought was pretty neat.  And I learned something funny about the word Jerusalem.  

Apparently, a long time ago, that word used to be a bit of a derogatory exclamation.  You can imaging that if you were out, minding your own business, and something as ugly as this crawled up to you, you'd yell something like, "Holy Jerusalem!!"

The whole experience was so fun and a really great science lesson.  It really got the kids excited about nature and doing research.  Because it has made such an impression on the kids, we currently have two more bugs of other types dried, tacked to our bulletin board, and waiting to be traded.