The Franklin Bug Squad Hosts Entomology Events for Indiana Girl Scouts

PORTER, Ind. - Franklin Pest Solutions Bug Squad and Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana (GSGCNWI) enticed 55 Girl Scouts and guardians to Spark Day 2024 at the Indiana Dunes Learning Center for an interactive event designed to expose young girls to careers in the sciences. Girl Scouts were able to interact with Casper, a female barn owl ambassador rescued by Humane Indiana, see beekeepers at work, talk with an entomologist and even a high school student entrepreneur who created an insect inspired card game in high school while continuing on as a Girl Scout through her senior year.

“This is just the beginning but we have made significant inroads,” Janelle Iaccino, also known as The Bug Girl with Franklin said. “In our company alone, since we started doing projects with Girl Scouts, we have gone from four percent of our staff being female to 28 percent now. This is important because, as everyone knows, men and women have different perspectives. It’s like Mars and Venus in the environmental sciences and it’s important to have input and expertise from both.”

Sixteen-year-old Evelyn Halbach agrees. At 16, she is still a Girl Scout and credits meeting Iaccino at a Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana annual Camp CEO event with help launching her EcoFrenzy: The Pollination Game.

“Since the game was going to be about pollinators and Janelle has a background in bugs and in marketing, I thought I would reach out to her to ask for help developing some of the scientific basis that the game was built on and also my marketing tactics," Halbach said.

For 20-year-old entomology student and Purdue Bug Bowl intern Sydney Territo, female led events about environmental sciences reinforce her decision to pursue her love of bugs, despite early discouragement.

“I wanted to be an entomologist when I was really little, but one of my schoolteachers completely dashed my dreams and I wrote it off as a job I could never do. Flash forward to my freshman year at Purdue. I started under a different major and found out that I could major in insect biology instead, changed my major at the semester and the rest is history," she said.

An early love of honey bees drew 26-year-old Cassie Coleman to beekeeping which she’s been doing for nearly a decade. She was at the Spark Day event with Willie’s Honey Company, “I feel that honey bees and other hymenoptera, the scientific name for social insects, are often viewed as troublesome or pests, but we would not be alive without them,” Coleman said, referring to the fact that honeybees and other pollinators are responsible for one out of every three bites of food we eat.

Courtny Rearick is a mother of two daughters who believes it’s important to show young girls the different fields that are available. She was at Spark Day with Casper, an eight-month-old endangered barn owl who, as a Humane Indiana ambassador animal helps teach the public about animals native to the area to mitigate human and wildlife conflicts through education.

“Barn owls in Indiana are endangered and this is due to grassland habitat losses. I hope young girls are sparked by meeting Casper and will want to help increase the barn owl habitat. Hopefully, they can one day bring barn owls back to Northwest Indiana and get them off the endangered species list,” Rearick said. 

Franklin is proud of its work in the community and helping to show young girls that they can carve paths that were not considered by young women before, the company said.

“Men have traditionally represented 95-percent of the workers in the pest control industry and we are working to change that. We are looking for a balance,” Iaccino said. “Our customers tell us they are thrilled when they see women show up thinking ‘Oh good, she understands me and what I’m freaking out about.’”

The Franklin Bug Squad hosts two STEM themed events during the year, visits classrooms, participates in community events and provides tools to encourage and empower children who express an interest in the environmental sciences.