On this week’s podcast episode, I have a conversation with two Explainer-Facilitators from the Exploratorium, San Francisco’s storied palace of science, art, and perception. Gwen Payne and Gianna Calamar both participate in the Exploratorium’s diversity and inclusion efforts, and we talk a lot today about how including everyone improves the visitor experience and, of course, increases learning.

I would love to hear from you! Feel free to drop by the Web site and drop me a message.

On this week’s podcast, I talk with Elise McFarland, an Interpretation and Education Manager for the California State Park system. In her far-ranging job, she’s responsible for several parks’ cultural resources and, of course, many levels and modes of interpretation. 

Like many informal educators – especially outdoor educators in regional parks – Elise calls herself an interpreter. Since Freeman Tilden published Interpreting Our Heritage in 1957, the idea of interpretation as a cultural activity has spread throughout the community of naturalists and museum educators and spawned organizations like the National Association for Interpretation. On the blog this week, I describe some of this history and current state of the term: Thematic Interpretation as an Art and a Science

On this week’s podcast, I talk with science educator Brittany Sabol. She’s the training director at Environmental Volunteers, an organization that turns everyday folks into extraordinary informal educators who go into classrooms to provide science enrichments.

On the blog, I have a post about volunteer training, often a big part of informal education sites.

For my ever-growing jargon list, I search for a good definition for a term we all hear a lot but don’t interrogate enough: Inquiry.

Please drop by the project’s website and let me know what you think!

On this week’s podcast, I talk with Minnesota naturalist Claire Dobie. Nature-based education is popular – who doesn’t like a field trip? But we don’t talk as much about how learning while immersed in the outdoors, in nature, can impact student behavior and outcomes.

Claire and I discuss the profession of naturalist and the “nature” of “nature-based education” – how we do it, why we do it, and how to get started!

Maybe most importantly, Claire and I talk about saying “I don’t know” when you have to. It’s a great way to model for learners that we don’t know everything (and aren’t supposed to!) – and that the learning part is the fun part.

Don’t forget to drop by the Web site to leave a comment, send an e-mail, or even suggest my next informal educator guest!

On this week’s podcast, I talk with piano teacher Jim Cornfoot from Memphis, Tennessee. We talk about the kinds of connections non-classroom teachers make with their students. For some informal educators like piano teachers, those connections can last for years.

There’s a huge body of research around affective connection and how it impacts learning. Essentially, we learn when we have connective relationships with the teachers and fellow learners around us. So the first blog post this week is about how we’re hard-wired to learn through interpersonal connection. Check it out on the blog here.

Also, I’m fascinated by the very basic question of “How do you talk to your students?” Like, exactly what mode do you use – do you lecture? Ask a lot of questions? What kind of questions? What’s your approach? So in the jargon blog, I look into one strategy called “reflective dialogue.” Check it out on the jargon blog here!

Don’t forget to drop by the Web site to leave a comment, send an e-mail, or even suggest my next informal educator guest!

On this week’s podcast, I talk with Eileen Garcia-Sanchez of the San Antonio Zoo in Texas. It’s a fully-accredited preschool that takes a lot of its inspiration from the world of outdoor education.

At the school, children spend a majority of their time outdoors, on both the school’s outdoor campus and in the zoo itself. Eileen and I talk about nature-based learning experiences and of all things, moss balls! Ball moss is a fascinating Texas epiphyte – I’ve put some pictures and info up on the Web site.

Safety is a big topic for informal educators who take their students into unusual (sometimes outdoor) settings. How can we justify putting our learners into situations they’re not equipped for? Climbing on rocky shores, exposed to biting insects, baking in the sun – aren’t we just asking for negative health consequences?

Well, as I discuss in this week’s blog post, the real risk is not exposing students to risk. Here’s what one researcher had to say about it:

Injury prevention plays a key role in keeping children safe, but emerging research suggests that imposing too many restrictions on children’s outdoor risky play hinders their development. (Brussoni et al., 2012)

That’s right – to keep kids safe, they need to take risks! Listen to the podcast below, and then for some more details and links, check out the blog!

This week, I talk with Jim DePompei of the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in Los Angeles. We talk about visitor engagement during the pandemic and, of course, doing the grunion dance. Grunion are small fish and pretty unremarkable except for this one thing: they dance.

Grunion visit wide, sandy beaches in Southern California and use wavelets to coast as high up the beach as possible. Then they make burrows. Females wriggle backwards into the sand, nestle vertically into the sand, and wait for the males to come twist around them, fertilizing the eggs.

The whole thing is quick but mesmerizing. And Cabrillo Marine Aquarium naturalists teach about these quirky fish, among other natural wonders, using a dance. Cabrillo teachers don’t stop there – they use broad, dance-like sequences in a call-and-response pattern that they call do-it-do-it.

The grunion dance and the other do-it-do-its at Cabrillo Marine Aquarium are examples of what language educators call total physical response. TPR is a great strategy for informal educators to incorporate into their lessons – so I’ve put up a blog post here.

Enjoy this week’s conversation with Jim DePompei. As always, I would love to hear back from you about what you thought!