Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana said it best when we called it our special Girl Scout Spark Day event. “Girls love bugs too!” The Bug Girls and several Flower employees, including owner Bob Dold, hosted 30 insect-loving Brownies and Junior Girl Scouts from the Greater Chicago Northwest Indiana Council at their headquarters. The STEM program took place on Saturday, May 7th in Northfield, Illinois.

Girl Scout Spark Day programs are special STEM-based programs that allow young girls to explore professional careers in a very hands-on, interactive way. As public health leaders in the pest control industry, Rose’s professionals are passionate about educating all walks of life about insect and rodent biology and the balance of man and nature. So when we partnered with the Girl Scouts, this kind of program was at our peak. Rose at Spark Day helped Brownies and Juniors earn Bug badges and STEM career badges.

Rose Spark Day

There are many different types of professional career positions in the family pest management business. You may not think so at first, but running a company like ours requires many different skill sets. We wanted girls to see it.

A career in marketing

We started the morning from the top. Bug Girls Janelle and Anna talked about the Rose logo, branding, gaining the trust of the communities we serve, and explained what our company does. Scouts made name tags and customized them to display their personal brands. Rose’s president, Congressman Bob Dold, an active Eagle Scout, spoke about our family business history and tested his knowledge of scout mistakes.

Customer service career

On the way down to the floor where our Care Center operates, the Scouts met several of our representatives answering customer calls and emails. Dejah explained how all our requests are handled and how we help people. The girls had some great questions about the types of calls we get. From ants to rats and everything in between you can imagine, we had all kinds of gasps, laughs and “ewwww” reactions. Some girls also had personal stories about bee stings, mosquitoes and ants.

Entomologist and beekeeper career

Our large practice room had several stations for Girl Scouts to explore and do more hands-on activities. The Beekeeper, Entomologist and Service Technician ice cream stations taught the girls about the science behind what we do. We discussed a healthy balance between nature and humans, as well as the importance of inspections and proper biological identification. Scouts observed specimens under a digital microscope, saw the inside of a real beehive, and used the tools a beekeeper would use to care for honey bees.

Licensed Service Professional Careers

One of our client’s favorite Service Specialists, Paolo, joined Girl Scout Spark Day! She showed the girls some of the most important tools we use when maintaining our clients’ homes. He explained that the flashlight is the number one tool of our experts. Paolo demonstrated how to remove cobwebs from extremely high, inaccessible places. He also showed the scouts some of his protective gear. Safety first!

Crafting with Bug Girls!

Inside, craft tables were set up for Girl Scouts to make bees, ladybugs, butterflies and caterpillars. Our Bug Girls were former Girl Scouts. Janelle always attributes many of her craft skills to what she learned in Girl Scouts. So naturally, we had to do some crafting!

Live Bugs!

One of the scouts’ favorite parts about Rose’s Spark day was definitely the live Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches. They were definitely not afraid when the Girl Scouts came to pet them and even hold them! They should observe how they breathe through small holes in their bodies called spiracles. They witnessed one of the cockroaches molt (shed its skin) and had a blast answering questions about insect, rodent and bat biology.

Pollinating friendships and saving bees

Spending the morning with these Girl Scouts was incredible. They had so much fun, asked great questions and learned so much along the way! Each girl went home with an insect habitat and a bunch of toys and candy, pollinator cookies and roses inside. We are excited to host more STEM programs like this and look forward to dusting off all our new friendships.

And speaking of pollination, we set up a pollinator seed bar to teach about some of the native pollinator flowers that grow in our area. They put together little bags to plant flowers in their yard and do their part to save the bees!