BUGMAN Educational Entoprises (B.E.E.) was founded by Mark Berman who obtained an Entomology B.Sc. from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Secondary General Science and Biology Teaching Certification from The Ohio State University. Berman started B.E.E., after extensive volunteer experience in classrooms at all levels in Hawaii, Ohio, and Massachusetts, teaching with the Massachusetts Audubon Society, and serving as the Curator of Entomology at the New England Science Center. B.E.E. started in central Massachusetts and served most of New England, primarily the greater Boston area. We are currently headquartered in Columbus, Ohio and serve the great central Ohio area. We frequently travel and hope to expand our presence in the future. An Advisory Board has been informally established and has shared information, talents, and ideas. Current AB members are: Dr. Wayne Hunter (currently in Sarasota, FL), and Brian Foy (currently in Chicago).
BUGMAN Educational Entoprises, has served thousands of schools, libraries, daycare centers and other venues - many of them numerous times - and hundreds of thousands of students and the public in New England, California, New Jersey and Ohio since its inception in 1996. The Joy of BUGS!, a one-hour long program includes awesome living Arthropods and one of our "entotaining" and knowledgeable BUG-People. Audience members are encouraged to look closely at, and even handle Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, Giant African Millipedes, and even Chilean Tarantulas. It is this familiar experience that provides an opportunity to encourage an empathetic understanding of the organisms with which we live - and understanding is the foundation for respect.
BUGMAN Educational Entoprises was started by educators who like bugs a lot. We are an educational company. The key to an effective lesson in virtually any educational setting is an effective attention-getter. We find big, hairy spiders to be very effective attention-getters! Our Arthropod assistants connect at some level with everyone we encounter. Even not very positive connections can get the lesson started. Everybody has at least one story about BUGS that they have to tell!
Our instructors are trained to use these natural "in's" as a way to get our audiences to look a little longer and to understand a little more. The key to respect is understanding. With an entertaining, challenging, interactive presentation, we take the BUG's point of view and investigate our similarities and differences, while considering important, global concepts.