Indiana Professional Educators, Inc.

Five years ago, IPE teacher Maggie Samudio from Cumberland Elementary in West Lafayette was asked a question in class by her student Kayla Xu why Indiana didn’t have an official state insect.  Maggie then challenged her 2nd grade students to change that.  Under her caring guidance, her students researched, developed, planned and implemented a state-wide project petitioning the Indiana legislature to name Say’s firefly (pyractomen angulata) as Indiana's official state insect.  Indiana was only one of three states in the union, along with Iowa and Michigan, without a designated state insect.

With her relentless support and encouragement, Maggie’s amazing students worked their way through the myriad of government bureaucracy and politics to persuade the Indiana Legislature - from petitioning the state assembly to finding supportive representatives to sending their fireflies to space.  The bill did not make it out of committee in 2016 so they re-petitioned the state in 2017.  In 2017, Senate Bill 236 successfully passed and Say’s firefly became Indiana’s official insect.  (Click here to see the long road they travelled to accomplish this goal.)

In addition to Say’s firefly now being the OFFICIAL state insect, their fireflies have also traveled to space in a zero gravity flight experiment, courtesy of Purdue’s School of Aeronautics and Astronautics program.  The experiment was designed so the chemicals that fireflies use could be combined via a computer inside of the payload box at just the right time and then a small video camera videoed the results. The result?  Yes, our fireflies light up in space, too!

Fireflies in Space

On Friday, August 23rd, 2019, Lt. Governor Suzanne Crouch and West Lafayette Mayor John Dennis presented the state’s first “Brilliant Firefly” award to eleven of those students who set out on this historic and life-changing mission.  These students are now attending West Lafayette Intermediate School.

Photo Gallery:  Students Receive Brilliant Firefly Award

Video:  State honors West Lafayette Students

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In today’s highly charged political atmosphere, it is comforting to know that behind the scene of every successful venture, of every challenge in our society, in every struggle to make significant and positive progress, to institute productive changes , there is a teacher with incredible patience, lending guidance and support and encouraging his/her student(s) to be successful and make the world a better place.  Thank you, Maggie, for changing the lives of your students, their families and our state!

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