During an end-of-the quarter art showing Wednesday, more than 50 undergraduate students displayed what they created when they took a hard look at both insects and art in a UC Davis course believed to be the only one of its kind in the nation.

The show, the culmination of professor Diane Ullman's "Entomology 1: Art Science and the World of Insects." included nearly 100 individual and group projects, such as textile banners, ceramic sculptures and mosaics, pen-and-ink drawings and computer graphics.

The class is the brainchild of Ullman and Sacramento-area artist Donna Billick. While taking a summer ceramics class from Billick, Ullman began making insects for a ceramic wall mural. She realized how the artistic exercise forced her to really learn the anatomy of the insects she was recreating in clay. From this experience and discussions with Billick, the idea of using art to learn biological concepts arose.

The course includes a variety of lectures by insect experts and artists on insects' biology, ecology and role in human culture, plus weekly art-studio sessions. Many of the students have become so involved with their artwork that they have requested additional studio time.

While Ullman admits she'd like to see some of these students pursue careers in entomology, she mainly wants students to explore a variety of academic areas and interesting careers they might never have considered before.

She stresses that science and art are really much alike in that both fields are based on observation that leads to a final product.

Ullman quotes Isaac Asimov, who wrote, "There is an art to science, and science in art; the two are not enemies, but different aspects of the whole."