DVIDS – News – Inaugural Bug Camp brings real-world science to young students at Aberdeen Proving Ground

The Defense Centers for Public Health-Aberdeen launched its first-ever Bug Camp, July 14-18, introducing 10 middle school students to the world of military entomology through hands-on scientific research and direct interaction with professional scientists.

The week-long program, held in DCPH-A’s lab building at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, gave students from as far away as Virginia, New York and Texas the opportunity to work alongside entomologists using professional-grade equipment and real-world research techniques. The program drew significant interest, with organizers selecting participants from 25 applications submitted nationwide.

“This is the most ‘science-y’ science camp I’ve ever seen for junior high kids in terms of the in-depth science and exposure to science with real scientists,” said Sarah McDowell, an assistant professor of secondary education at Maryville College, Tennessee, who served as a resource teacher for the camp. “This has been an amazing experience.”

The campers spent five days learning about public health entomology through activities including mosquito surveillance, tick collection, microscopy work, and even polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, laboratory techniques typically used by professional researchers–exposure that would be impossible in most traditional classroom settings. According to the National Institutes of Health, PCR is a fast and inexpensive technique used to “amplify”—copy—small segments of DNA. Because significant amounts of a sample of DNA are necessary for molecular and genetic analyses, studies of isolated pieces of DNA are nearly impossible without PCR amplification.

Program support and lasting impact

The program was supported through the Army Educational Outreach Program’s Gains in the Education of Mathematics and Science, which provided insurance coverage, funding for supplies including lab coats and notebooks, and $125 stipends for each camper to offset transportation and meal costs. DCPH-A used AOEP GEMS grant money to purchase some of the specialized materials including the permethrin-treated protective coveralls used during field collection work. Clothing treated with the insecticide permethrin protects the wearer from mosquitoes, ticks, and other pesky biting arthropods.

For educators like McDowell, who discovered the program through the National Science Teacher Association, Bug Camp represented an invaluable opportunity for students to see science careers up close.

“Students don’t typically have this type of access,” she said. “Here, students see it as a normal occupation because they are working with seven or eight entomologists. They see the diversity and passion of people who have conveyed their science so well to the students.”

Students embrace hands-on science

For 12-year-old Mariia Shestiuk, going into seventh grade, the camp opened her eyes to a potential career path.

“I learned a lot of stuff about mosquitoes. I learned about the different types, and that was really interesting,” she said. “I’m actually quite interested in entomology; I might even become an entomologist when I grow up.”

Owen Skufis, 12, from Bel Air, Maryland, was struck by the variety of field experiences.

“It was a really interesting experience. We learned about mosquitoes and ticks and caught a bunch of ticks in the field. Then we got to search around the lab building to try and find different bugs,” he said.

Local student Owen Halgas, 12, from Aberdeen, Maryland, appreciated both the outdoor activities and sophisticated laboratory work.

“I really liked catching the bugs and pinning them to posts. I thought that was really cool,” he said. “The camp was fun. We get to go outside in nature and get off screen and enjoy the world as it is. We got to do lab stuff, like checking ticks for diseases.”

Professional-level learning experience

The camp’s carefully structured curriculum was designed to give students authentic scientific experiences while maintaining high engagement through hands-on activities. Jennifer Carder, Integrated Pest Management branch chief and Bug Camp director, explained the program’s format.

“We set it up so the campers would get a little bit of classroom time, followed by some activity, back to the classroom, and then another activity.”

Day one began with Entomology 101, introducing students to the field before moving into specialized mosquito education. Campers toured DCPH-A’s insectary and pesticide laboratory, then ventured into the field to set up various mosquito traps and collect specimens using sweep nets.

“I’ve caught different bugs using a sweep net. I caught aquatic bugs using dippers, including a water bug. That was fun,” said Shestiuk.

On the second day, students checked their mosquito traps and worked with microscopes and dissecting scopes to identify their specimens using dichotomous keys—tools that guide identification through paired choices based on observable characteristics. After identifying insects to their proper order, students pinned their specimens for future study.

The microscopy work particularly impressed the young scientists.

“We were able to look at insects in detail using microscopes. I liked looking at the tiny little details on an insect. I would have never known beetles had hair on them,” said Halgas.

This was a unique opportunity for the campers.

“Junior high students do not typically have a lot of contact with microscopes in the classrooms, and to be able to look at the insects they just collected under the microscopes has been very engaging and enjoyable,” said McDowell. “They’ve identified what they found with entomologists who are very engaged and passionate about entomology.”

Advanced laboratory techniques

Wednesday focused on tick surveillance, with Robyn Nadolny, chief of the DCPH-A vector-borne disease branch, leading education about ticks, organisms “vying for the ‘most dangerous’ animal, along with mosquitoes,” said Carder. Students donned Permethrin-treated coveralls to flag for ticks in wooded areas before working in the sophisticated tick laboratory.

“They got to run a gel with some already prepared products and see how their PCR products separated in that gel,” said Carder. “Not using little plastic pipettes, but the actual ones our researchers would use in the lab.”

Halgas was impressed by the laboratory’s capabilities.

“It was really cool because the lab has futuristic tech for us to use,” he said.

Kevin Harkins, an entomologist with the Entomological Sciences Division at DCPH-A, emphasized the unique value of having students conduct their own collecting rather than working with pre-collected specimens.

“Having them collect insects is a change from how we generally interact with these students,” said Harkins. “Usually, we’re bringing insects that we’ve already collected. Having them do the collection themselves and using equipment that we provide, including professional traps for collecting mosquitoes, or flags for collecting ticks, they’re making a connection now that maybe they wouldn’t normally make.”

The hands-on approach proved highly effective with the target age group.

“Kids like hands-on activities, right? Anytime we’re doing hands-on anything, they’re 100% engaged,” said McDowell. “That’s the kind of science and the kind of exposure we want students to have.”

Military-civilian collaboration

The program brought together expertise from multiple military installations, demonstrating the interconnected nature of military science careers. U.S. Army Reserve Maj. Ted Snyder, an entomology officer at Public Health Command East who also works as a high school science teacher, co-taught a session on urban cockroach adaptation.

“This is such a great opportunity for kids to interact with insects and develop their ecological literacy,” said Snyder, who plans to incorporate the Bug Camp lesson into his own classroom. “They get to work with actual scientists doing inquiry-level work.”

Students appreciated the building inspection activities that Snyder helped lead.

“I really enjoyed doing all of the field work outside and doing the building pest inspections we did today. That was really fun,” said Shestiuk.

James Butler, chief of the entomological sciences division at Public Health Command East, praised the program’s comprehensive scope.

“It provides the students a complete overview of what entomology is; the different avenues within it and then be able to have that applied science they’ve seen over the past few days. It gives these students an opportunity to see what real-world science is like.”

Expert panel and competition

The camp concluded Friday with an expert panel featuring four entomologists who answered student questions, followed by the first Bug Camp “Ento Games” challenge—a college bowl-style quiz competition complete with buzzers—moderated by Dr. Ashley Kennedy, a state entomologist representative and former ORISE intern at DCPH-A.

The expert panel included Dr. Kennedy, James Butler from Fort George G. Meade, U.S. Army Col. Hee Kim (currently director for Occupational Health Sciences but trained as an entomologist), and Dr. Charles Bartlett, an entomology professor at the University of Delaware.

Bug Camp impact

The camp’s impact extends beyond individual learning, said Carder.

“We plant seeds, and then they can actually start ripples,” she said. “If we teach these kids about how important it is for them to protect themselves, the hope is that they take that home and that ripple continues, and they can share that with their friends at school or in their neighborhood, and with their parents.”

Butler noted that the program targets an ideal age group for scientific engagement.

“At this age, it’s getting them excited for it—to want to learn it—so we show them and have them go through motions of how to collect stuff, how to inspect. This engages their mind and gets them to want to learn more.”

DCPH-A hopes to continue the program in future years and build on this inaugural event.

“It’s great to have a chance to interact with students and show them all the great things that we do, the types of equipment that entomologists use—and maybe one day they’ll grow up and want to be an entomologist,” said Carder.

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Date Taken:	08.07.2025
Date Posted:	08.07.2025 08:08
Story ID:	544994
Location:	ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, MARYLAND, US

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