Berkley High students eat bugs for a cause WITH VIDEO

Phil Bednarczyk, Peter Hoch and David Meadows spice up their pizza with some bug topping. (Ray J. Skowronek/Daily Tribune)

BERKLEY -- A group of Berkley High School students spent a couple of hours Wednesday eating live and cooked bugs to raise money for land conservation.

Peter Hoch, a senior, has been a member of the Wilderness Survival Club at the school since he was a freshman and still remembers the first bug he ever ate.

"It was a cricket," he recalled. "It was great. The cricket was cooked plain and it tasted salty and crunchy, sort of like fried chicken skin."

Shawn Grose, a science teacher who is the advisor to the student wilderness club, said the eight students who participated in this year's Bug-A-Thon are raising money for the Southeast Michigan Land Conservancy.


"The reaction of the students eating bugs ranges from complete disgust to, 'That's not too bad,'" Grose said. "Nobody has ever actually thrown up."

The bug menu at Wednesday's fundraiser included everything from beetle larva, called super worms, to meal worms and crickets.

Some of the worms were cooked and put on pizza, Grose said.

"It's hard to keep a live cricket on a pizza," he added.

Some of the bugs were seasoned and fried to make them crispy.

Grose has joined in every year to eat bugs with the students since their survival club began eight years ago. He also teaches wilderness survival at the high school.

"Eating the bugs teaches you to operate outside your comfort zone," he said. "It tests you when you have to survive on what mother nature offers. It's not meant to be a 'Fear Factor' sort of thing."

Students aren't forced to do anything they don't want to do and tend to see eating bugs as a personal challenge they would need to meet if they had to survive in the wild.

The students who scarfed down worms and insects got pledges from supporters to raise money, with all proceeds going to the Southeast Michigan Land Conservancy.

The land conservancy is a nonprofit group dedicated to the preservation of natural land in the region. The group was founded 24 years ago by people who wanted to protect open spaces where they lived, according to the group's website.

A three-person staff manages daily operations for the conservancy, which is chiefly composed of volunteers. The group maintains and cares for land held in its trust with regular monitoring and stewardship projects. They also work to educate the public about land conservation.