Episode 165 with Lauren Giordano and Laura Stroup
We Will Never Run Out of Things to Study in Nature
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SHOW NOTES:
One of the most intriguing aspects of our discussion with Giordano and Stroup is their experience of writing a book as a trio, alongside Stephanie Hathaway, the third author of "Nature School." Although Hathaway couldn't be present on the podcast, the authors offer valuable insights into the collaborative process they undertook. They reveal the joys and complexities of working as a team, combining their unique perspectives and expertise to create a cohesive narrative that celebrates the magnificence of nature. Their collective effort not only captures the essence of each biome but also emphasizes the importance of collaboration in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding.
Discover the wonders of nature, the rewards of collaborative writing, and the never-ending opportunities for study and exploration that lie before us.
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
165 LAUREN CHICKIE AND ROO
Ginny Yurich All right, Here you go. Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich, and I'm so excited to bring you two guests today, Lauren and Laura. So this is great. Who? I've actually been connected with Lauren for quite a long time and Laura for maybe a little bit last, but for a long time through Instagram. So thank you for being here. You also have another friend, Stephanie, and the three of you have written a book together. Congrats.
Lauren Giordano Yeah. Thank you. And it's good to be here.
Ginny Yurich So Lauren Giordano is Chickie and Roo. So that's the funny thing. You get to know people sometimes through their Instagram handle. So even recently, I was like, Who is this Lauren on my list? I go back like, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Gigi, Andrew And I think we've been I feel like I've been connected with you literally since I got an Instagram. Your beautiful artwork and have seen your nature things for years and years. And then Laura Stroupe is at Firefly Nature School. And same thing, just stunning artwork, really incredible activities to connect kids with nature. And then Stephanie Hathaway is an artist. She's at Stephanie Hathaway Designs. And the three of you wrote a book together. This is fantastic. So you're going to have to tell us the history. Everyone's going to want to know about how the three of you connected and then what sparks a book. So let's start there.
Lauren Giordano So exciting. I mean, it's a it's like a home school mama nature club, right? And we have Laura and I have been working together for like four It's been four years.
Laura Stroup I think it's been almost five. Wow.
Lauren Giordano Wow. I have no sense of time since the pandemic and everything else.
Laura Stroup But.
Lauren Giordano It's been a very long time. And Steph came on board many years ago, too. So every month we release a collection of nature studies with Steph's unit, study and artwork and my artwork and activities. And that's been a monthly subscription for years.
Ginny Yurich Wow.
Laura Stroup Yeah, we've worked together for several years and it's been so much fun. We have fun collaborating even though like, we've actually never met in person other than, you know, Zoom or texting. But we feel like we know each other so well, but we've never met in person, so.
Ginny Yurich That is wild. Now, you've been business partners and friends for such a long time and not to have met in person. Where does everybody live?
Lauren Giordano I'm in Florida. And Laura and Steph. I'm sorry.
Laura Stroup Yeah, Steph's up near Kansas City and then I'm in Springfield area. So down in southwest Missouri, in the Ozarks.
Ginny Yurich I mean, you have a book coming out. Are you planning to meet in person?
Lauren Giordano That would be amazing.
Ginny Yurich Like, hold the book together and get a picture.
Laura Stroup And have like, an actual picture that we don't have to, like, knit together with, you know, electronic or technological devices. Yeah. Hmm.
Ginny Yurich So did you connect at the beginning just through homeschooling and your love of nature?
Lauren Giordano Absolutely, Yes. Yeah. We all had small businesses. We were growing them and collaboration as a great a great way to grow and network. And it all sort of just unfolded naturally and organically.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. What a cool thing. So what are some of the overlaps of things that you do versus what are some of the unique things that you do? So I know the three of you are artists. Do you focus on different types of art? And Stephanie's an artist, so what are the overlaps and what are the differences.
Lauren Giordano You want to take back in a way? Laura I'll.
Laura Stroup Start. Yeah, my artwork is not my artwork. It's actually a friend of mine does a lot of artwork for me. That's not my forte. So I, I do a lot of her writing. So nature studies, writing curriculum is something I've been doing for 20 plus years in the nature realm and science realm. So that's kind of my wheelhouse. So that doesn't overlap. Well, I mean, Steph and Lauren both write stuff as well, but when we do our Wild Mag or monthly subscription and when we did and worked on the book, we were able to kind of each take our own little section and use our best talents and, and work well together in that capacity.
Ginny Yurich So yeah, what a cool thing. I love that. So the book that's coming out and it will actually already be out by the time this podcast launches so people can go purchase. It's called Nature School Lessons and Activities to Inspire Children's Love for Everything Wild. This is by Lauren, Laura and Stephanie, three authors coming together to create this beautiful book. It's coming out just at the start of summer. So perfect for summer learning. I just am such a passionate person about putting the worksheets away for the summer, you know, sometimes. It's come on with these huge learning packs. Like, no, like, let's learn at least in a different way. Do the summer being outside. Exploring your surroundings and finding all the fascination out there. And so this book is coming out just in time for that nature school. So talk us through the process of you're already doing a lot of stuff together. Where does the book fit in? How does that happen?
Lauren Giordano Well, it was the next natural progression, and the format of creating this book together as a team was much the same as what we've been doing every month, where Laura primarily did the writing, the writing of the lessons, all of the information. And Steph and I did a lot of artwork, diagrams. You've got lifecycles and anatomies and things like that, which is what we normally do. So it was kind of taking what we've already been doing for years, but, you know, putting your big boy pants on and doing a grown up version.
Ginny Yurich MM What was the hardest part of it?
Lauren Giordano Oh, boy. Well.
Ginny Yurich What do you think, Laura?
Laura Stroup Well, I think just I mean, as far as writing the book goes or editing the book itself and not the whole process behind that. But I think the hardest part was just getting started and figuring out how to kind of divide up the different sections and the workload and stuff did a great job of kind of editing that process and organizing everything from like a big picture down to the minor details. So made my job so much easier, I know for sure, but I think that just kind of getting started was the hardest part for me. Oh, and then tearing down the way too many thousands of words I had written, but I was going to say editing. But yeah.
Lauren Giordano We're all really passionate.
Laura Stroup And I got a little overzealous.
Lauren Giordano I guess we could have made five books with the ideas and content that we were trying to put forth. And Steph is a Wonder Woman and she has a great vision and she was able to reel it in a little bit. But we get a little out of control when we're excited about something.
Ginny Yurich Well, nature, yeah, nature study is such a broad topic. It's a good topic, really. What are your favorite things to study in nature?
Lauren Giordano Oh, that's a good question. I would say, Laura, you know, all different kinds of plants and trees and or I love animals and I love terrain, but I'm most interested in probably plants, I would say.
Laura Stroup Mm hmm.
Lauren Giordano What about you, Laura? Nice.
Laura Stroup I probably am more interested in animals and wildlife, but I also I've come to appreciate plants a lot more, but I have a harder time with plant identification and things like that. So like I gravitate toward, well, life. And I guess I worked for several years at a wildlife museum and at a zoo and doing like education programs with animals. So I think maybe that, you know, lends to my my wildlife preference. But I think anything that's right outside your door, whether it's a plant or an animal, something that you can see right there and interact with and even like pick up absolutely is always fun, regardless of what it is. I mean, it's not venomous or anything like that.
Lauren Giordano I think it's really exciting to see how everything is connected. Right. Like certain plants are food for certain animals. Certain animals will pollinate certain plants, certain plants grow places because of the animals that carry the seeds. And just the way that everything is intertwined is I mean, it's endless. You can go down a million rabbit holes by starting with one place, and pretty soon you see why all these other things are a result of it. And that's really fascinating to me.
Ginny Yurich And that's how our brain works with all these different connections. That's why it's such a good way to learn is so through the study of nature. Because through studying nature, you can learn every topic in a way that makes a lot of connections. It makes it easier to remember. You can see your loves come out in this book because there's a lot about Flora and there's a lot about animals in wildlife. So talk us through the structure of the book and how you ended up structuring it that way.
Lauren Giordano So the book is laid out in five chapters and each chapter correlates to a biome. Each biome chapter has information on the terrain, the climate, the flora, the fauna. You have maps, diagrams, life cycles, classifications, processes both in text form and in diagram and pictorial visuals. And then Laura done amazing job of including so much information. And then at the end of each chapter there are Hands-On Lessons for Hands-On Learning.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. So was it hard to come up with that original format or did you kind of know you were going to go that route to begin with?
Laura Stroup I think we had already planned when we first thought of doing the book. Is that right? Laura In trying to think back, we had already planned like the general format or we wanted to do the five different chapters and kind of the biomes and but we wanted it to be more hands on than just like a, a like research or reference. Yeah. So and more active, you know.
Lauren Giordano Right. So the lessons that Laura wrote at the end of each chapter, there's several different activities you can do, and that makes the book far more interactive and engaging. So you're not just reading it and putting it back on the shelf, you're going to come back to it again and again. You're going to use it for more than you know for getting outside. And my favorite thing about Laura's activities and lessons is that they are so simple. So time and time again, I've heard parents homeschooling or not homeschooling talk about how they don't like a ton of crap, like we all love science experiments, but who wants to collect 45 materials and try to source everything to do it? So Laura wrote these so simply that you'll have everything on hand already. They're everyday items, or you can simply go outside and access those few minimal supplies that you need.
Ginny Yurich MM Yeah, that's great. I mean, it's a time thing to try and gather all those resources. So if you want to do these things and it's easier, then you end up doing them well. Okay, so let's pick a biome. Laura pick a biome of the five. Which one you want to talk about.
Laura Stroup Let's talk about who that stuff. How about grasslands?
Ginny Yurich Okay. You know, it's so cool. I just read this book called The Great. It's not called The Great Alone. It's called The Four Winds. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah. And it's all a book about the Dust Bowl and that it's so interesting. I had no idea in depth and how really traumatic that was for so many people who were planting in the grasslands. But the grass was really meant it served a purpose. And so then it just ended up being these crazy dust storms where they would have to wear masks and the dust with seeping through the house. It'd be all over the place. So interesting. So I just read that book by Kristin Hannah.
Laura Stroup Oh, well, good. I mean it.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. And then I loved reading about grasslands in your book, Nature School. So talk to us about. Some of the things in there, like, okay, the purpose of wildfires is in that section.
Laura Stroup Sure. I mean, wildfires can't Well, we always think of wildfires as something that you want to avoid and are dangerous and horrible for the environment. But I mean, naturally, they've occurred for, you know, a very long period of time. They serve a purpose to in a prairie or a grassland or like a savanna, an ecosystem that has a lot of grasses. The wildfires are going to be important to get rid of any like woody vegetation. So, you know, you don't have trees growing up or other woody plants growing up in that area. And the grasses can then thrive and they have like growth points that are so close to the ground or even underneath the ground where they can still emerge even after a fire has gone through. So wildfires are, you know, vital in some cases.
Ginny Yurich That's super interesting because also I never think about wildfires in terms of grass. I think about wildfires in terms of trees.
Lauren Giordano Right? Sure.
Laura Stroup And I mean, and then in the forest, I mean, some species of trees actually require the heat from wildfires in order for their seeds to emerge and to be able to grow and reproduce. So the forest fires, while dangerous, also in some situations historically have been necessary or, you know, plants to be able to reproduce and grow. Mm hmm.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. So interesting that they go in the grasslands, too. In that chapter, you talk about Tornado Alley. And I thought that was interesting because it just brings that together that in a lot of the areas where there are grasslands, that tends to be where the tornadoes are more prominent. Is that correct?
Laura Stroup It tends to be. I want to say I grew up in Iowa where, you know, grasslands abound. Maybe that's why I gravitate toward learning about the prairie, because it surrounded me where I grew up. But yeah, we lived in Tornado Alley and miraculously, I've moved down to southwest Missouri, where apparently I also live in Tornado Alley, so I can't escape. But it was something I grew up with. I mean, there were, you know, every late spring and summer, we're always you know, we had thunderstorms, tornado warnings. We had to run to the basement, you know, take cover. Only once do I ever remember seeing a funnel cloud when I was a kid. But, you know, there's still you have those warnings that you have to deal with and that can be super scary. But it's just part of living in that area or being in that area.
Ginny Yurich Wow. But you did see one.
Laura Stroup When I was a kid. Yeah. We were at a track meet and I remember the sky was like an eerie greenish color. It was kind of freaky. It's not something you'll forget anyway. And the tornado sirens started going off and my mom's like, retire. And we drove a couple of miles to our house and we ran down to the basement, got under the desk. And I don't think the tornado ever touched down. But I do remember my rabbit was outside in her hutch, and I was so scared. I'm like, we need to get my money. And my mom's like, we're not going outside. You have to stay here. But everything was okay. We all survived. But yeah, it was it was frightening. You don't forget stuff like that when you know it's has a big impact on you. When you were a kid.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. Yeah. Just interesting that it coincides one with this grasslands. One of the activities in that chapter is to make a tornado in a bottle. So tell us about that.
Laura Stroup Yeah. Do you want to talk about it or.
Lauren Giordano No, No, Sorry. I feel like.
Laura Stroup It's monopolizing the conversation.
Lauren Giordano The tornado girl.
Laura Stroup And the tornado are really I think it's a super simple activity. It just kind of replicates the spinning of the funnel. But basically you're filling like a two liter bottle and putting the cap on and then kind of spinning it around so you can get the funnel moving and you can watch it if you put like glitter or something in there, which I am totally against glitter in my house. But if you do sprinkle a little glitter in there, you can get a better view or kind of see the funnel even even more. But we won't be doing that at our house. The glitter part.
Ginny Yurich But like you said, that's super easy. What do you need? You need a bottle, you need water. So you need some of these supplies.
Laura Stroup Yes. Just to be able to visualize. Yeah.
Ginny Yurich Okay. So then what are just some other favorite parts of grasslands? Either the animals or the flora? What sticks out to you?
Laura Stroup Well, yeah, I feel like throughout the book, and not just in grasslands, but I can talk about it or speak to it in the grassland chapter. But throughout the book it has more of a global perspective. So even though I grew up in the Midwest, in the United States, we don't just talk about the North American prairie, because this book, you know, is geared toward a wide audience. And I mean, we do that in our monthly nature study subscriptions where, you know, we try not to make it specific to one area of the world, because people you know, we have subscribers in Japan. And subscribers in the U.K. and, you know, subscribers in Singapore. So it's like we don't want to just focus on one area. Plus, I like for my kids to learn about other areas of the world as well. So going back to grasslands, we cover know North American Prairie, but also Savannah and Africa and Australia and the Asian Steps and the South American Pampas. So there's a lot to learn about different regions of the world, which I think is important.
Ginny Yurich It's a cool way to learn geography. Right. Yeah, this is similar. This biome is here, but it's also here and here and here. And these are some similarities and these are some differences. I love that. What do you think, Lauren? What do you love about the Grasslands chapter?
Lauren Giordano Well, I love the flora. I love the grassland successions. You know, it's it seems like a simple thing. If you were to stand in a field, you're like, okay, it's a field, But there's so much more to it that isn't apparent, isn't readily apparent. So it kind of more than other biomes, it kind of forces you to have that attention to detail and look a little closer. And then you're seeing, well, what's camouflaging, what's nesting under the ground, what's nesting under the leaves of the grasses in the weeds. There's just so much there if we can just draw in a little closer. And that's that's fascinating to me.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, that is interesting. We have grass. We're on this hobby farm and we've been here. We're going into our fourth summer and we have grass. I don't know if it's considered. Prairie grass is overtaking. It is like an overtaking type of grass. So I grew up in a neighborhood where the grass is like this tall, mow it. This grass will be like up to your hips in a couple of days if you don't keep on it. Like, what is this? But is it being that when we go out into an area where we haven't dealt with it and it's super tall, you really can't see anything else? It just seems like that's all there is is grass. So, yeah, that's a really interesting point, Lauren, that when you look through that chapter, there's so much in there, even when it all kind of looks the same.
Lauren Giordano Absolutely. There's secrets hiding and yeah.
Ginny Yurich And I loved in that one you could press the grass is like there's pressed grass and pressed wildflowers so I've never thought about that. Just pressing the different types of grasses. It looked so beautiful. So, yeah, that's a little sample of what's in the book, although obviously it's so much more comprehensive than that. Let's pick one more. So, Lauren, why don't you pick a chapter?
Lauren Giordano Oh, let's do wetlands.
Laura Stroup Okay. I knew that one was coming.
Lauren Giordano Yeah, that's one. My passion.
Ginny Yurich Okay. Why is it your passion?
Lauren Giordano Well, because I live in Florida.
Laura Stroup Yeah. Yeah.
Lauren Giordano I live in the cypress trees with the alligators. I love it.
Laura Stroup Oh, yeah. Yeah. Mhm.
Ginny Yurich So in that one, talking about the animals, which I know Laura loves to talk about, but there's interesting names like, you know, we talk about rabbits, but there's swamp rabbits and there's marsh deer. So tell us some of the unique things about what is a a marsh deer versus a deer that we see running through the forest or a swamp rabbit.
Lauren Giordano You take over that one.
Laura Stroup Laura. Okay. I was going to say something that is going to live in a swampy area like a marsh deer is going to have to be adapted for the wet mud so wider and they're going to be adapted to eat the vegetation found in wetlands, which are going to be different than you're going to find in like a white tailed deer that's in the forest we have here in the Ozarks. So similar body structure and shape, maybe slightly different coloring to blend in better in a wetland environment, and then just a few anatomical gifts that will allow them to survive in the wetlands ecosystem.
Lauren Giordano Usually a little smaller, too, because they're not bulking up to, you know, sustain a winter or a very warm winter. Yeah, Yeah. Our deer. A lot smaller than northern deer for sure.
Ginny Yurich Interesting. Well, and I've never seen a rabbit go in the water. And that was one of the things that I said about the marsh rabbit is that it would hop away and go into the water. If there's a predator, I guess it.
Laura Stroup Can swim or hide from predator. Yeah, The water.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. I've never seen.
Laura Stroup That. Yeah. You don't think about that with the cottontail hopping in the yard. Yeah. Right. They run into a dense vegetated. Yeah. You'll never find them. But yeah, being able to hide in a wetland is a, you know, a lot of different adaptation and. And the cotton tails.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, that's interesting. I think a swamp rabbit would be a great title for a book or something. Some sort of book series.
Laura Stroup The next one, maybe the next.
Ginny Yurich Okay. So Lauren, talk us through growing up in the wetlands.
Lauren Giordano Well, it's wet and it's hot and it's humid, but, you know, a lot of people think wetlands or Florida wetlands specifically don't have seasons because it doesn't snow. It doesn't get. Extremely cold. It's pretty temperate year round, but in fact there are a ton of seasons and a ton of natural cycles occurring in this process, even if it's a relatively similar climate year round. So you're still going to have mating seasons and breeding seasons and nesting seasons, right? You're still going to have seed dispersal studies and you're going to have different weeds and vegetation that bloom and die off. And there's just so much that takes place over the year that you're not looking at it in a traditional sense. But if again, that attention to detail, if you look a little closer, you can see that there really are changes going on. And I just I find that really interesting.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. You talk in that chapter about the purpose of mosquitoes. So I think everyone really wants to know what that purpose.
Laura Stroup Is to.
Lauren Giordano Annoy us. No, I'm just.
Laura Stroup Yeah. To give us a reason to, like, slap things and get our frustrations out. No. Mosquitoes serve an important purpose as a, like, a food source, basically, for other animals. I know around here, bats. The bats that we have eat thousands of mosquitoes over the course of a week or a month. So they are a great food source for many creatures, whether they're larva in the water or whether they're, you know, adults flying around. So I would say that is their main purpose. I ask that same question about ticks, though. You haven't found a good enough reason.
Ginny Yurich Well, it's interesting because the dragonflies eat them too. And you have cool information about dragonflies in this book, but we have a lot of dragonflies where we're at. I'm not quite sure why and I love dragonflies. They're so cool. But we had a big storm last year and then all of a sudden the dragonflies were gone and all of a sudden there were tons of mosquitoes. So I almost think people are always like, How do you deal with mosquitoes? And I'm like, If somehow you could get a bunch of bats or dragonflies, they would eat them. And it really actually makes a huge difference. I just don't know how people go about doing that. But dragonflies are so beautiful and I know they eat them too, so it's noticeable. It's a noticeable difference with the amount of mosquitoes that are outside depending on what you have that's eating them. So this predator prey relationship, this is woven throughout the entire book. Tell us about why you ended up weaving that in.
Laura Stroup Sure. Well, I think that one of the reasons or the main reason is because we tried throughout the book to show that you can survive all of the living things. Predators and prey and then non-living things in the ecosystem have to be able to interact together and for the ecosystem to prosper. So predator and prey are really, I think, obvious choice when you're talking about a relationship between animals and an ecosystem or even herbivores and plants, you know, and how one relies on the other. And, you know, populations, as you said, populations of mosquitoes just took off when the dragonflies weren't around to eat them. So if they didn't have a predator to keep them in check, they just the population exploded, which isn't good. So showing the value of both predators and prey species and how they balance each other out throughout the book and the different ecosystems that we discussed, I think is a really important feature.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. One of the activities in there is pond dipping, and we've done that a couple of times, and it is actually really incredible, kind of like when you talk about the grasslands, you know, you're looking at water. It just looks like water. But when a pond dip, well, then you find all sorts of things. So. Tell us about an experience that you've had pond dipping and what kind of things you find.
Lauren Giordano Oh, pond dipping. It's like one scoop of pond water is a whole ecosystem in and of itself between. Yeah, the bacteria and fungi, the algae. You have vegetation that grows under and on top of water like pond weed. You're going to have larva and eggs from amphibians and reptiles. I mean, it just if you have a microscope, if you can take a closer look, it's like this huge world that we look at pond water, we think nothing's really going on in there unless you see a fish or a tadpole swimming. But there's so much more there that feeds into the greater ecosystem and the riverbanks and marsh banks around that area, too.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, it's fascinating. And once again, that's an easy one. You can maybe have a microscope or maybe have a magnifying glass or maybe not. You're just dipping in and you've got some sort of a container to put your things in so that you can observe. And Florida, one of our favorite places to go. I'm not sure if you've been there, Lauren. I'm not totally sure what area you're in, but we've been to this place called Circle B Bar Reserve. It's got a weird name, and it's in the Orlando area. You could drive there if you're staying in the Orlando area and it's completely free as one of my favorite places to go ever. Is there so much to explore there? Have you been? You're nodding.
Lauren Giordano My kids have been. I'm dying to go. My kids have been. I have nothing yet.
Ginny Yurich Okay. I mean, it's just it really does show. It's you're right on the water's edge almost everywhere. And there's all sorts of different animals there. There's wild pigs running through and the rabbits and obviously there's alligators. They're mainly in the water, but sometimes they cross the path and just beautiful birds. It's stunning. It's one of the most stunning places that I've been, and there's all sorts of places that you can go. So it's an interesting thing to think about the biomes in terms of places that you visit. So we're heading into the summer tends to be a time where families might go visit a new place, a new state, a new country, depending on where they live. How many of these biomes have you experienced personally?
Lauren Giordano Me, personally, all in all of the biomes in this book I've been to for sure.
Laura Stroup Mhm. In general, yeah. All of them. And not to all the specific areas. Like I've not ever been to South America. I've been to Central America, but not South America and I haven't been to Africa or Australia or even I guess to Asia, but because we have so many of these different biomes here in the United States, I've been to, you know, several in our country, but.
Ginny Yurich Well, it's a really cool thing. It's something that I hadn't thought about until I looked up these main biomes. And I thought, when you're talking about living in Florida, I'm like, Well, we've been down to those wetlands and we were just in Louisiana. So same thing, wetlands everywhere. You going on these swamp tours? There's swamp roses. I mean, all of these different types of things. And then we've been to the desert and we've been to the seashore and we've been to a forest. And I feel like my backyard is like a grassland. You know, we mean we probably not into the main grasslands, I guess. So that's a neat thing to that. You were talking more about the nature that's right outside your door. But it is neat that through the course of maybe a childhood or in your adult life, that when you go on a trip, even if it's not to study nature, just to go on a family vacation, that you could talk about what you're seeing at the seashore, or if you get to go to a title pool, you can come back to this book as a reference. Was that some of your thoughts, too, about picking these fire?
Lauren Giordano Absolutely.
Laura Stroup Sure. Because, yeah, I think they're fairly accessible for many people. And there are biomes that span the different countries. You know, regardless of where you live, they might be within driving distance or even, you know, walking distance depending on where you are. But yeah, that definitely plays into, you know, which ones we picked to learn about. I think.
Lauren Giordano I agree. I think there's beauty everywhere and something to be learned and studied. No matter where you live, you don't have to live on acreage. You don't have to live in an exotic place. There's something to appreciate outside of everyone's friends or even people who live in the city who feel like they don't have necessarily like an abundant access to these really wide open spaces. I think this book will show that there's still something that you can enjoy. One of my favorite things about the book is that the way each biome chapter is broken down, you have birds, mammals, predator and prey like you two discussed, and then you also have the insects and amphibians. And it just kind of shows that similar classifications are everywhere. So you can learn to identify them and then you can kind of compare, you can see how they're adapted to those specific places. Obviously some biomes you more readily associate with certain classifications, but these things are everywhere and they're a little bit different, but that makes them unique and interesting to learn about.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, like how in the Desert chapter it was talking about how you're going to have to help. Laura I don't know if it's frogs. There's certain animals that will go underground and basically become dormant if it's too hot or there's not enough water.
Laura Stroup Yeah, amphibians. We got a lot, right? Amphibians are a classic like desert species that you think of, but because they tend to live in moist areas, but there are toad species that live in the desert that yeah, well hang out in burrows under the ground until they they hear the rains. Scientists think that like the raindrops on the ground, you know, signal to them, hey, like it's time to come out, it's safe, you know, And they'll come out and they'll, like, reproduce and all in a really short span of time. It's like metamorphosis in fast forward so that they can complete their lifecycle while there's still water around. So yeah, so cool. Oh, nature. It is circulating. I love it.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. Kids, I think in general, kids tend to focus in a lot of times on something specific that really fascinates them. And I think that that is a way for them to learn about the world. Because when you're learning about one thing in particular, a lot of times you can learn a lot of things. Through that study. So if a kid were interested in turtles, let's say it would be a neat thing to study. What are the turtles like in these different biomes? Do they exist? So because there's so much information in the book, you really do see that. Oh, hey, well, this is here and it's here and I see deer, but there's also marsh deer. And you really could learn a lot about the study of a specific topic through the lens of what it looks like in these different biomes. I just saw a video the other day, Laura, that you found a box turtle.
Laura Stroup Oh, my favorite. Yeah. We live on about 20 acres and we have some forest and some open space. And those box circles love to come out in, like, right at the edge of. We have some trails on our property, so right at the edge of the trail so they can, like, I feel like they put themselves there so they can get into the tall grass if they need to. That tall grass that you were talking about. We have that too. It grows like crazy. So the box turtles will hang out kind of at the edge of that tall grass and the trail. And so we get a glimpse of them. Our dogs find them first usually, and they'll run up to them and sniff sniff staff. And I'm like, Oh, about external. Yeah. And, and then the dogs will leave them alone because the turtles, like, go inside their shell and close it up. And then my kids, it never gets old. I mean we've seen, you know, box turtle after box turtle, but we always still get so excited to see them. And so they're super cool creatures, but very different from something you would see in a wetland because they they are box turtles, are it terrestrial, They live on land, they have tall shells, they don't have webbed feet. They're almost like a tiny tortoise.
Lauren Giordano I was just going to say, you're making me think of our gopher tortoises.
Laura Stroup Okay? Yeah.
Lauren Giordano So they burrow in the sand banks around a lot of the waterways and. Yeah, no, the webbed feet. How shall I love seeing one?
Laura Stroup Yes, that would be awesome. But very different from something you would find in the water. But, you know, they look like a snapper. Yeah, we have those around here too. Yeah, I love them.
Ginny Yurich Totally different. Well, we just saw one the other day. We were at a nature center, and it came. I mean, you could hardly see it. It had came up out of the water. You hardly knew it was there. Its shell was basically covered with stuff. Moss, I don't know, super blended right in. The only thing you can see is a little bit of movement in the water, and that's how you knew that it was there. So interesting just to study turtles and all the different varieties that there are. My daughter came up the other day and they found a turtle. They're coming out now where we're at. But she was like, It looks like it's painted. I was like, Oh, that's why someone named it the Painted Turtle, because that is what it looks like. There was a cool thing. Yeah, it does. It never gets old and I think it combats the screens. I want to be fascinated by something that's not on the screen. That's not a Netflix show. I want to be fascinated by something that's real life. And I think that your book is such a good reminder that there's so much out there.
Laura Stroup Oh, that makes me happy that you say that, because I feel that to my core, I will never run out of things to learn about in nature. And it like, brings me comfort. I don't know why, but just to know that there is always something I can learn on something new to find out even about a box turtle. I'm sure there's things that I don't know about it, even though I studied them for a long time. And you know, it's just nature is so fascinating. And I think it does combat the kind of instant gratification from screens that kids get, which is what keeps them coming back to video games and things like that. There's so much to be found out in nature that, you know, you can learn about and discover. It's just the best.
Lauren Giordano I totally agree. And it's a personal connection. And so for especially children who are developing a a personality and their own growth pattern into maturity, that personal connection is so important.
Ginny Yurich And as a lifelong learner, this is connecting you to a history because you think about, well, who who learned that these animals are buried in the ground, in the desert and waiting till the rain. And there's a word for it. I don't even know how to pronounce it as a vision.
Laura Stroup Yes. Right.
Ginny Yurich So someone has studied that in the past. And we're continuing on in this study of nature. And so I think that's a really cool connection point that throughout all of human history that people have been fascinated by particular things and also to study them and that we have this vast array of information and then we can continue to study them and learn new things. So what a neat thing. The book Nature School Lessons and Activities to Inspire children's Love for Everything. Wild inspired children and adults alike Write for Everything wild. Tell us a little bit about the extras. You have an educator's guide.
Lauren Giordano So the educator's guide is based. Basically a way to make the book even more interactive and hands on. It's a black and white guide. There are lessons and ideas for essentially how to expand on what you're learning, bring the education level up a bit. Maybe you're going to make a unit study in your home if you're a home school, or maybe you want to run a co-op in your class or a hacking group or something like this with multiple kids. And you can bring the information and the guide and the information in the book for a roundabout lesson, so to speak, a new learning experience. But the majority of pages are black and white. They have essentially duplicate diagrams, processes, lifecycles, anatomies illustrations that are in the book but in black and white. So children have the opportunity to fill them in with color, label them if they're understanding processes like, for instance, photosynthesis and transpiration and the carbon cycle and things like that. And so it's just a way for kids to show what they've learned. And if if any families who do home education are using it, then it's really helpful for parents because it's like we did the work for you. You can use Nature School the book to round out a great learning opportunity at home, and you don't have to spend the time prepping and trying to figure it out for yourself.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. Yeah. Take a bunch of reproducible that you could use. Yes. In your home or in your classroom because they're black and white. What is the process of getting your hands on that?
Lauren Giordano Well, if you've ordered the book when it is released in June, you will be able to go to the publisher's site. I believe you put in your receipt number, verification, and then I believe you'll be able to download it right from the publisher's website and you can print as you need.
Ginny Yurich Okay, Well, what a cool addition and people can order that book. Nature school, kind of probably wherever they order books, but then go to the publisher's website in order to get that educator's guide. Has this sparked ideas for more books?
Lauren Giordano Oh, goodness, Jenny.
Laura Stroup Funny you should ask. Maybe just a few. We've already had.
Lauren Giordano A guilty as a river.
Ginny Yurich Give us a tease. Give us a tease of one or two or something.
Lauren Giordano Well, something that I would like to focus on. I'm trying to get Laura and Steph on boards. That is that a lot of people don't. The people who don't enjoy being in nature that I know tell me they don't enjoy it because they're fearful. They don't know what's dangerous or not. They don't know what you're supposed to touch or not. What can hurt you? How can I hurt you? How do you fix it if you accidentally, you know, incur something? So I would like to make a book that kind of educates that aspect. I don't want to say the title. I don't say anything else. But, you know, kind of helping people understand the dangers, I think will give people a lot more confidence to know what to avoid and how to be careful. And I mean, it's important to educate yourself on all aspects of nature, not just the beautiful things, but the things that can be dangerous. But then you can also learn the benefit of those things. They might be dangerous to us, but maybe not to other species. They still have a purpose, you know?
Laura Stroup Mm hmm.
Ginny Yurich What do you think, Laura? Are you going to do it?
Laura Stroup Oh, I'm definitely. Yeah.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, it's a good idea. I mean, especially to for travel. You go to new places and you don't know. I think the alligator one is actually a really big one. Lauren, We swim. We've come and we now we swim some in the Orlando area. We swim in some of the springs. And I cannot tell you how many messages I get about why are you swimming there? And, you know, if you really look back, there's hardly been any deaths from alligators.
Lauren Giordano Very few.
Ginny Yurich It's very I mean, it's like less than 100 or it's such a small number. It is a surprisingly small number. You would think there's been tens of thousands every year. And it's such a small number. We found a statistic. It was like going back to 1971 and it was such a small number. So it just really learning what to watch out for. And is it breeding season and don't go in the marshy, swampy water if you're out in the clear spring, if there's a lot of people. So, I mean, I'm not throwing it out there to say, hey, go swim at alligators. But it's a it's a it's dispelling sort of this myth that if you put your toe in the water in Florida, you're going to die.
Lauren Giordano Yeah, you're basically right, right off the bat. Never had a chance. Yeah.
Ginny Yurich I was going to grab your toe and it's going to wrestle you to the bottom and life is done. I mean, I think there is a thought if you don't have the information. So I think that's a great idea for a book. And then even the aftermath, like we've got some family members who've got. Some raging cases of poison ivy. What do you do? Oh, right. How do you handle that?
Lauren Giordano And how can you identify it so that you avoid it to begin with as well? This identification is is a huge culprit, a huge problem of people incurring, you know, vulnerable situations, but having the knowledge beforehand. Then you develop the respect and the appreciation and then you're just you're careful through the whole process. But yeah, alligators are so misunderstood. They're my favorite animal. I love them so much.
Ginny Yurich And like Laura was saying earlier, if you're not a for a person and I'm not, it is hard to distinguish why the leaves of three. I can never figure it out. So just to have some really good information about what are we looking for? And it's really very few things, but there are things to look out for and to have good understanding of what they are and what they look like and how can you adequately identify when everything kind of looks the same? So I think that's an awesome idea.
Lauren Giordano I have a friend that won't hike with me because she's scared of snakes and I am.
Laura Stroup I was just going to.
Lauren Giordano Say on a trail, a snake isn't going to like just fall out of a cliff and attack, right? Like it's not a boogeyman, it's just a snake. If you understand the differences in their patterns, if you know, like especially in Florida, they're primarily going to be hiding under pine needles and leaf litter. They're not going to be spread out in the open. They're not going to follow. You just understand how they behave, adjust your behavior to be respectful of their environment. But then it's not so scary. You can enjoy all of nature and what it has to offer safely.
Laura Stroup Agreed. And I think it's important for the animals to like snakes. In that particular instance, misidentification results a lot of times in their demise because people are afraid and end up killing them. And it's, you know, a harmless non-venomous snake species that no one had to be worried about to begin with. And so, yeah, that's definitely like a little soapbox of mine, but I seem that happen a lot.
Lauren Giordano We have the indigo snake here. I think it's even it's definitely vulnerable. It could even be endangered now. But people were, you know, killing them because they misidentified them as a water moccasin. But they're totally harmless. And like a place like Florida, a lot of people have this spooky, like, everything's poisonous, everything's dangerous, everything's out to get you. But even here, I believe we only have five venomous snakes in the whole state, and they're not even spread throughout the whole state. You know, they're segmented between northern.
Laura Stroup Stay with my area.
Lauren Giordano And so it's like, okay, okay, so there's two snakes and, you know, a 150 mile radius that could possibly hurt. You just know what those two are, know how to avoid them and be respectful.
Ginny Yurich Right. And it goes back to the predator prey situation that each animal, each living creature serves a purpose. And so we don't want them to meet their demise if that doesn't have to be the case. I remember being at Honeymoon Island State Park over on the Gulf side with our kids, and there was yeah, and there was a nature center in the area, in the beach area, and there were big signs that said basically, stay on the trail, don't walk through these certain areas because this is where the snakes live. So if you just know their habitat and you're teaching your kids to stay on the trail, then usually things are okay. And so I think that's an awesome idea for a book. Lauren It would definitely help a lot of people. So I gave it my vote. So, so this is it's been awesome. So excited for you and congrats on this new book. We always end our podcast with a favorite outdoor memory from your childhood. So whoever wants to go first.
Lauren Giordano Man. Okay, I'll tell this story. I'll try not to cry. I've told this story so many times now I have maybe nine, and we took a ton of trips since I was a kid. I think my dad took me on four or five vacations a year. He wanted to see all 50 states with me before I graduated high school, so I was maybe nine and we were in Pennsylvania. Totally different biome than I'm used to. And Pennsylvania has chipmunks. Flora does not have chipmunks.
Laura Stroup And so we.
Lauren Giordano Were in the woods on a trail and my dad saw this chipmunk and I couldn't see it. I don't know if I was too short or I just couldn't see that it was camouflaged really well. And most adults, I think, would kind of be like, Oh, okay, well, you know, you missed it. Let's keep moving on. There's other things to do. You know, we got to meet a time constraint or whatever they've other kids they're chasing after. But my dad just kneel down with me and we must have sat there for ten or 15 minutes, and he just waited patiently until I saw it. And I eventually did see him. So I actually did. And it just made me so happy that he didn't give up on me and that I got. You see this animal that I had never seen before, and so it made me feel valued as a child. And so I just I've always carried that memory with me. And I try to do the same with my kids as well.
Ginny Yurich I had no idea that chipmunks were not everywhere.
Laura Stroup Me neither. I feel like now.
Lauren Giordano They're in Florida, but I'm in the Gulf area. Our squirrels.
Laura Stroup Many.
Lauren Giordano Are squirrels. Athletically small. But no, no chipmunks. Mm.
Ginny Yurich That is so interesting. Somewhat. I was just talking to a friend, and she told me that her husband as an adult was like, Why don't those type of squirrels get bigger? Why do they always stay baby squirrels? And she was like, Because they're not squirrels, they're chipmunks. And she's great. So interesting to learn about the different parts of the world and a cool incentive to travel because you see new things, things that are only in certain places. So what a story. Laura, what's yours? And then we'll wrap it up.
Laura Stroup Has heart, I think. I don't know if I have, well, I guess a specific memory, but we used to travel down where I currently all around where I currently live now. But from Iowa down to Lake of the Ozarks. And my grandparents had a cabin on the lake. And so we would go down there every summer and just in general, memories of spending time outside with my dad. He taught us how to fish with a cane pole, you know, and he taught us how to water ski. He'd sit in the water with us while we were floating, trying to get our skis on. He'd hold our skis together and for us. So when the boat pulled us up, we could have a fighting chance. You know, when we were learning, he was the most patient man. And those memories mean so much to me now. He passed away about a year and a half ago. And so just all the memories that I have outside with him hold a special place in my heart.
Ginny Yurich It's just another reason to spend time with our kids outside, because those memories do run deep. And then we have these touch points where we remember them through different smells and different experiences, different weather, and it reminds us of the people that we love once they're gone. So what beautiful stories both with your dad's and it's it's cool. This book is coming out right after Father's Day. And just a reminder that when we go outside with our children, you know, we we really invest in them in so many ways. So congrats on a new book. Lauren, Laura and Stephanie, who's not here, huge. Congrats. It's such a huge undertaking. Nature school. It's a beautiful book. People can find it wherever books are sold and then go to the publisher's website if they're interested in the educator guide. Thank you for your time. It was so great to connect.
Lauren Giordano Thank you so much for this opportunity, Ginny.
Laura Stroup Yes, thank you. I really enjoyed it.
