I had the incredible honor of spending last week at UC Santa Cruz, teaching 8th-grade girls from the area during an inspiring week of STEM learning, creating, and sharing. They experienced college life with all its challenges and joys—6:00 am showers, racing to the dining hall for meals, and pushing through the fatigue for that last workshop, only to leave with countless new ideas. They encouraged each other and took pride in all they had accomplished. And that was just the first day! The week culminated in an exciting engineering build night. For six wonderful days, the campers set aside their phones to immerse themselves in core classes, workshops, and collaborative activities. We traded likes and comments for laughter and hugs, and in the end, tears of joy.
7TH GRADE: This is how we learn, and have fun! I have students that are seniors in High School and still remember the lyrics, which means they know the organelles.
I had the distinct honor to meet one of my idols and a relentless source of inspiration to me as a biologist, that one person can make such a profound difference in the world. I have included a short retrospective by Nationall Geographic and the full discussion which I attended last Friday. I felt such pride presenting her with a jar of honey from my bees for her 80th birthday! I’m happy to share this experience with you. I hope it means half as much to you as it does to me.
I was honored to receive recognition at last year’s gala for The Parent Friendliest Teacher in Oakland. If you are interested in attending or sponsoring – click below the announcement for the registration form!
The earliest stage in the lifecycle of the Bug Lady can be traced back to the Midwest in the early 1990s. Elementary students near Illinois State University were introduced to live insects from the ISU Entomology Lab by an inspired graduate student and secondary teacher.
Wings unfurled, she expanded her range as the Associate Director of Education for Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences in Peoria. The Bug Lady appeared frequently in school outreach and after-school enrichment programs, summer camps, senior homes, and occasionally on local news. In 2001, she served as President of the Peoria Academy of Sciences, reviving the Entomology section and encouraging girls to pursue careers in science.
Like the Monarch butterfly, she then migrated to the west coast, basking in the California sun and tending to her newly hatched larva (baby Sophie). “In my mind and my heart, I’ve always been the Bug Lady, not so much for the knowledge I’ve acquired regarding insects, but more for the feeling that I’m in a constant state of metamorphosis – ever changing.”
After a long diapause, the imago of Bug Lady was sighted in Alameda summer programs, along with her assistant, Bug Gurl. She returned to the science classroom in Oakland and taught middle school integrated science for 12 years. is now taking flight in cyberspace to share her love of insects, science, and life in general with enthusiasts of all ages.
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