Erin Garrett: 00:06

Welcome to another episode of the Everyday Environment podcast where we explore the environment we see everyday. I'm your host, Erin Garrett,

Abigail Garofalo: 00:13

and I'm your co host, Abigail Garofalo.

Erin Garrett: 00:16

And today, we are here with Peggy Anesi, who is a Natural Resources, Environment, and Energy Extension Educator located in the northern part of the state, and we're gonna be chatting about empowering kids about climate change. Welcome, Peggy.

Peggy Anesi: 00:30

Thank you very much. Glad to be here.

Erin Garrett: 00:32

Awesome. Well, we all work together in Extension, and we know what you do with youth. Tell our listeners about the work that you do with youth and environmental action and empowerment.

Peggy Anesi: 00:45

So I'm I've been doing environmental education for 25 years with Extension, and prior to that, I did, residential outdoor ed. It was never my intention. My first degree is in wildlife management. I guess there was never, a descriptor on what wildlife was, but I now manage wildlife in the form of children probably, 80% of my job. And so it wasn't what I wanted. I didn't even wanna talk to people, but as people know, Extension's job is to communicate. So when I did, an apprenticeship, I found out what it meant to have the floor and went, oh, I can communicate what I believe and what I love. So then I it turned into this long career watching children and our communities and our environment change and how that changes with how we help those kids relate relate to their space.

Abigail Garofalo: 01:37

Yeah. I feel like you have had this, like, kind of crazy journey. Extension's a wild job anyways. Like, you deal with all sorts of people and, all sorts of different kinds of roles, and all of us kind of do little bit of different things. And, Peggy, you get a lot of, like, wildlife questions, but, like, I would say a lot of your job really does center around youth education. Specifically water. You do a lot of water education, and a lot of water programming, which is pretty cool. So when we're talking about youth or kids, why is it important to empower them to understand and take action on climate change?

Peggy Anesi: 02:15

So I'm gonna preface this conversation because the things I'm gonna talk about today are simply my opinion or personal insights from 30 years in of environmental education. I hope I never sound hypocritical nor do I mean to in any way attempt to shape someone else's opinion, because these topics can get sensitive. I only hope to be a small catalyst of thought. So for those who are who are listening and and potentially respond in their own way in their own community. So just want to put it out there. These are just things that have come to mind as I've traveled through the environment led world. So just wanted to make that clear.

Abigail Garofalo: 02:53

Our disclaimer. I totally get it. Yeah.

Peggy Anesi: 02:56

Well, I think that, and we'll get to that, you know, the how to do that. Our generations were you know, you hear it you hear it every generation. We're handing over to the next generation what we leave. Right? But it's not just that. I'm I'm seeing adults, in our on our county boards who can't make decisions about natural resources that are critical and timely because they don't have the knowledge base. So in my mind, the more we attach children to the natural regions around them, we don't have to go and and blast the climate change bells. We just have to have, you know, have to have time to spend with them, having them relate to their communities and their space, as it relates to the natural world so that when they sit on a county board, they don't have to, you know, table a topic on watersheds four times to bring in specialists to talk about them before they can make a decision when that decision might not have that much time. So looking at both ends of the spectrum, we have adults who who haven't had we've had plenty of time, you guys. We've had all this time to be blending this into our conversations, this climate education, weather changing patterns, and we haven't done it. We've been so worried about, you know, pressing the climate change and the big picture. We've missed all of our little opportunities, I think. So we need to make up for that.

Abigail Garofalo: 04:19

Yeah. I definitely see in my programming, I made a promise to myself a few years ago that I was like, everything I teach relates to climate change. Why am I not kind of bringing that connection in? So I try and bring that in, you know, anywhere and everywhere that I can because I noticed people aren't attending climate change programming, unless they're, like, big into the climate change programming. But it the the programs that I'm teaching are all related to climate change. Somebody comes to my class about, you know, wildlife friendly gardening practices, I'm gonna talk about how climate is going to, change and be affected, and your garden is gonna be affected by that and the wildlife within that. Somebody comes to me about a lawn care class. We kinda mentioned how, yeah, you need to have more resilient plants in your landscape, and your lawns need to be more resilient because we're gonna be seeing these larger stress events on your plants. And so kind of bringing in those little opportunities to empower youth and empower adults too to just kind of help build like, help scaffold those connections for themselves. So that way Mhmm. You don't always have to have an expert there or you know? Yeah. Sure. We'll talk to you about the scientific connections and all those things, but there's some basic concepts that you don't have to know the name of everything or the term, but you need this idea that, like, water connects everything in this concept called a watershed and, like, how our landscape is connected and how, oh, there are interactions that occur between different living things and nonliving things in an ecosystem. Asking those questions about, well, what is interacting here? Really, and just having those tools to ask those questions is so important.

Peggy Anesi: 06:01

And pulling that thread together. Yep. Definitely. You know what I when I was saying that that, you know, we've got some catching up to do. People, all ages, they're all we're all naturally lifelong learners, and it's we were talking about us all working together. It's our charge, really for those of us in the field to offer that knowledge, and that's what we do, right, in a digestible fashion. But we have windows of opportunity that we aren't taking advantage of, but somebody else will. Whether it's, you know, everything from what's on sale to you know, we we need to market even better. We need to market our knowledge even better because sharing objective knowledge and having passionate non nonjudgmental conversations, will help to it'll help develop that life raft. Right now, we need a life raft for the adults who don't who've lost that attachment. And I don't mean it to sound like, oh, they're horrible. They just they don't have time to figure out maybe you know, I gotta pay the bills. I gotta get to work. I gotta do this.

Peggy Anesi: 06:58

It doesn't occur to them that the paper they they, you know, that comes in the mail if they still get a bill is from a tree. They don't think about their fuel. One of my favorite moments was a young adult who came to a, a meeting because we had a a large oil company that we're gonna put a pipeline right through our county. And she came to the meeting in her SUV, full size, to complain to the oil guy about a pipeline. Okay. We aren't even connecting those dots. She was in his face. I'm like, how did you get here today in my car? In my car. I'm like, I think we need to have a conversation, not a, you know, one-sided battle. And she hadn't even thought about that. We we aren't we're missing so many connections as adults because we're not educating our we're not I I don't wanna say it like that. We aren't taking opportunities to educate youth. Have them stay aware of where their food is coming from, where their water's coming from, and narrow it down. It has to be narrowed down. You know?

Peggy Anesi: 07:56

In a in in Extension, our team, we had this potential, how to deliver it. We had a group that was that, our leaders saw the advantage of us getting more comfortable with the whole lead idea. Leading is one thing, but we we gotta fulfill it. And for our kids, we can assist our schools in developing curriculum right now. I mean, we've missed that. We've missed that boat. There's always a change. And teachers are like, I can't get my kids on a field study because we don't have time. We're teaching to the test in 4th grade, blah, blah. But what if we were teaching to the right questions on the test that are relative to meeting the standards and using those examples. And one of the things that, you know, Extension is throughout the US. We are the best blanket for bringing and with the next generation science standards being federal, it's all lining up. Right? And it's a perfect fit. And, you know, I know you guys know that I'm a big storyteller. Storytelling is amazing for youth, but if you make it nonfiction, that's also a standard they need. They are supposed to be getting nonfiction literature. Right? Mhmm. So storytelling is a part of who we've always been as a culture. And and every culture has a storytelling component. Why did that work so well? Because it was relevant. It was relevant to who they were, and if that's all they had, that stayed with them to create who they were that grounded them to their position on the planet. And it sounds goofy.

Peggy Anesi: 09:27

My sister one day, she was my older sister, my favorite hippie on the planet. Right? And she goes, well, don't you think that, eventually all being just we all be the same, that big melting pot's a good idea? I said, no. I don't. We wouldn't have our individuality to share and our cultures to compare and share if we're all the same, and we wouldn't have that connection. You know, I'm northern Swede, English, and Danish. I why do I love the forest so much? Innately, I you know, genetically, that's what I know. And we don't even talk about why we choose certain things we choose, why we favor certain things we favor in the case of of nature.

Peggy Anesi: 10:09

And with our kids, we have to minimize. You know, we talked about watershed. Yes. Until I I about said until I die. Oh, my lord. Until I retire. Same thing. Right? I'm focusing on watershed because I figured out that with with all education, especially climate education, you can narrow this down for children and bring it right into their town within a basin, within a watershed, and now it matters. You're not talking about you know, my best example, my son came home from 3rd grade all yippee skippy. You know? Oh, something good's gonna happen, and he came in the door. And it was adorable. He said, mom. I said, oh, something good's gonna happen. He goes, we're gonna make a diarrhea. And I went, I'm sorry. What? He go I said, oh, what? You mean a diorama? Because he said that we need a shoe box. And I was, like, terrified. He goes, that's what I said, a diarrhea. I was like, okay. So we're

Abigail Garofalo: 11:00

Duh mom.

Peggy Anesi: 11:02

And I said, what are we making a diorama of? He goes, of the rainforest. Okay. I'm getting ready to do mammal camp with 7 to 9 year olds. We're doing dioramas of native Illinois mammals. Right? Habitats. So I'm like, okay. Yay. We should all know about the rainforest because over 90% of our birds migrate there. That's my connection. And the next day, he came home in absolute tears, just shredded. I mean, you he barely made it off the bus into the house, and he lost it. And I said, buddy, what happened on the bus? He goes, nothing. I said, well, what's wrong? He goes, my teacher told me I'm supposed to save the rainforest, mama, and I don't know how. And I said, well, I don't think that's what she means. I think she meant that you should remember to turn off the lights and not run the water. He goes, no. That's not the teacher doesn't even know the impact. It's not her fault. But you've taken a child who wants to make something so special and different and made it as big as the Amazon. Right? But what about native habitats for insects that feed the birds in your backyard? Right? And where does climate fall into that? Every level. Right? Every level. So I think

Abigail Garofalo: 12:06

And there's, Peggy, there's a lot of research too on, like, learning education and the science of learning that, like, play space to, like, making it as close to home as relatable to themselves as possible, is so effective in learning. And you mentioned next generation science standards. I work with a couple of colleagues who specifically in, if people didn't know this, that extension has educators whose job it is to train teachers on next generation science standards. It's a true shift in science education. Science education used to be a lot of, like, memorization of, like, this is what's done, and here's this explanation and memorize that this is what's supposed to be done for it. And next generation science standards, and I'm explaining it the best that I understand it as someone who's never who doesn't have a formal education degree. Right? Like, my degree is in informal education. He's worked with these colleagues for several years. It's more about the process of science and understanding how to ask questions and taking phenomenon and asking questions about them and discovering the information because

Peggy Anesi: 13:12

Yeah.

Abigail Garofalo: 13:12

And I tell this to my Master Naturalists all the time. If you came here expecting that I'm gonna teach you the 30 plants, top plants in in the Cook County region, and then the 30 top birds or the, you know, whatever top and I'm just gonna list them to you and tell you about them, and then you're gonna memorize them. I'm so sorry. You're gonna be very disappointed in my training. Because what I'm gonna teach you instead is the tools how to do those things. I'm gonna give you the tools to understand and research botany language. So that way you know that if I I can better, research that, oh, this is an opposite leaved serrated leaf. Right? Like, that's gonna tell me a lot more than just, like, this is Canada goldenrod or something like that. But I don't, so this process learning of, like, what to ask, how to ask, why to ask, things like that is is really the the the basis for these next generation science standards and really a a true shift, a true cultural shift in science education.

Abigail Garofalo: 14:10

And so wonderful to see because for people who have been, like, advancing their knowledge on how to teach and how to do environmental education, we know that fire hose lectures don't work as well. And by that, I mean, you know, okay. Here's everything you need to know about water in Illinois, and here's I'm gonna talk to you for 2 hours about this topic. Instead, we're gonna all see a demonstration. We're gonna go out to a river. We're gonna investigate. We're gonna get nets in the water. We might get in the water, and we're gonna ask questions about the world. And I have some objectives of what we wanna talk about, and I have some things that we're gonna need to know. And maybe I'll give you a couple of definitions of things that you couldn't possibly discover on your own. Right? All in all, you're kind of going on this journey of learning, not just receiving information.

Peggy Anesi: 14:57

Right? And I just did a, it was the best one of my best you know, all my better programs are landing in the end of my career somehow. Maybe it's because I time and wisdom. Right? But I just did what I call the paddle and learn, and I got teachers to it. You know, they came, they attended, and it had nothing to do with here's a kit and how you teach it. And they were a little bit thrown. Like you said, they were like, what what you know? It was all teaching them as lifelong learners about their watershed. And day 2, one of the 4th grade teachers came in. We were eating our morning little things I provided before we got started, and she said, Peggy, so I have to tell you. Until yesterday, I didn't know what a watershed was, and I had no idea I lived in one. So how do we expect him to teach? Right? So that's our role is to is to continue to teach.

Peggy Anesi: 15:45

And if I teach a teacher, I get, what, 25 to 28 more students. I get it. You know, I'm I'm I'm going for the ripple effect at this point in my career. And they were so enamored. They literally I brought in all the speakers on all these topics around watershed, and then at the end, we put them in the river. And we went into the Rock River, and we were applying everything we learned. And the best part about it, there was not a single agricultural space. They found every best management practice or need for one all in that urban urbanized space. So they couldn't say, oh, the farmers are doing it all, which we always hear, and it's not true. Right? And it was like, wow. These are like there was a guy mowing the lawn into the river. There was a random pipe pouring, unknown, hasn't been raining into the water. We had geese, solid geese. We had plantings, and we had raw dirt. We had so many things. And they're like, and this was just a 2 hour part of one river in the US. Right? When we got out of the water, one of the other 4th grade teachers on the same team, she said, well, I guess I'm going back today to start rewriting my science curriculum. I said, really? She goes, yeah. I was using mudslides for erosion, but now I'm gonna talk about cover crops.

Abigail Garofalo: 17:01

That's awe because that's what the those kids are

Peggy Anesi: 17:03

That's what these communities see every day. Yeah. Communities. And I was like, so, unknowingly to me, it came to fruition just like I wanted it. Right? It was just all I knew was I was gonna make sure they understood the watershed from hydrology to best management practices. And in the end, I only had a few teachers. It was the first year. I had one counselor, a high school counselor, and I said, yeah. You can join us, and he was the most enamored. He was on. You'd love him because he Abigail because he was a really into the soils guy, and he was just on it. And afterward, he said, I have a a question if I wanna know if you'd be okay if I did something. I said, what's that? He goes, I'd like to put together something for all my high school teachers, even the non science ones, and I wanna call it what I did this summer and tell them what we did so they know how important this is. I'm like again, I get chills. I didn't know what would come out of this thing, but I knew if I didn't and then they were like, well, one teacher was, I kinda thought we'd have, like, like, we do models and different things. They said, I can still do that with you. We live in the same county. I can give you a 1,000 curriculum off the shelf, and it's gonna go right down on your shelf. So I'm not doing that. But I am available to design your 4th grade, your middle school, your 7 6th grade, 7th grade teachers, your the counselor who talked to me, whoever wants to come, they're 6 miles away. I'm a resource now. But yeah. So to the to that what how NGSS is working, but we have all these people who went through it before that who are just rote memory, no content, and, I wanna help them help their communities and be attached.

Abigail Garofalo: 18:37

I was gonna ask you. Yeah. Peggy, so when it comes to you know, you're talking about relevance for these students, you know, they you took them out. You did this paddling program. So they actually physically saw these instead of seeing pictures of, like, a model drawn or something. They got to physically see stuff. So what are ways in and your thoughts on making climate education more relevant?

Peggy Anesi: 19:00

So remember the part where I feel like we're a little behind on adults. Right? So community, and you wanna stay. We talked about getting that small within your watershed or within your community within that watershed. A couple examples that I pulled, and I found one came over my phone. The, anthropomorphine magazine came up, and they had an example. There was research done in and it came out in Science Advances this week. If you're in Florida, here's an example. You can plant mangrove forests. Right? As a community, like, we plant trees in our forest preserve. Depending on your habitat, you can plant those. Now for them, the reason I picked them, it was amazing. The quote in there was mangroves mangrove forests are climate treasure chest storing more carbon per acre than virtually any other natural landscape.

Peggy Anesi: 19:46

Now I'm assuming within the region they they are provided in. Right? Not necessarily comparable to a prairie, but in the region they are, they are considered to be than virtually any other natural landscape as far as carbon, storage. So as one example, if you bring it closer to home for I went to a conference in Madison, and the mayor spoke. And she said we were we really needed this space, this small space to do, and I don't remember what she said they were gonna do with it. And this woman said you can't do that. It's a park now, and people use it. And she said, but it's it we have all these other parks, and we need this. So the woman, just a community member, went out and found a school group, like, I don't think it was middle school, and started a birding program. Birds around the world.

Peggy Anesi: 20:33

That's what she called it, birding program, and they utilized it consistently, like, weekly. They went to that park, noted noted all the birds that used it, and she basically set it up so they couldn't. The community got behind it and said, you can't get rid of this. The kids are using it as a birding location. So instead of arguing and fighting for just holding it for no reason, she made a purpose. She found one of the many purposes of that green space And that's that's insane. Now Madison, 90 purse 95% of the residents in Madison are within 10 minute, within a 10 minute walk, longer if you are a a person of, you know, with different abilities. The 10 minute walk from any park from a park. They're all within a 10 minute walk. They didn't need this park, but they actually provided a you know, this woman provided a way, an attachment.

Peggy Anesi: 21:22

So, again, you're not talking about climate change, but there's a cooling space. Right? And and another article that came out, I don't know if I have that one cited, but it was in London, and they they did all this data collection. And they're the white roofs high quantity of white roofs actually do better than green roofs if you have them en masse. And then they said, but trees do better than whatever, but the green roofs are better.

Peggy Anesi: 21:47

But what we have to also do is then say, but what's the carbon sequestration? Like, don't just stop at one thing, which is what this article did. I'm like, yeah. But what you're forgetting is the trees don't just cool. They hold. You know? So then there's a layer you could teach. I talk about it. My favorite new space relative to this in Boise, Idaho, and they're transforming into the into the nation's 1st water and climate education center. And this woman spoke, and she goes, I gotta tell you, there's just one icky spot in the whole in this whole Climate Watershed Center, one icky spot with the graphs that terrify. The rest is, how do we how do we wanna sustain Boise, bringing it down to their community? So they're teaching about their community. We might have we have a little water issue coming up. How do we address this? Oh, well, we could do this and this and this.

Peggy Anesi: 22:34

There goes your NGSS. You know? Right? So you're including youth with big big decisions and with adults who are trying to catch up and get on the ball, and they have this whole 7 step climate action plan now. And number 7 is, engagement, investing in engagement. And I'm like, okay. It's not that hard. We just need but the problem is sometimes we wait too long because now we have an emergency. We don't need to wait. You know? We don't need to wait at all. Yeah. I just think it's a great opportunity.

Erin Garrett: 23:06

And it can seem like really big problems to address. Right? With everything we've been talking about, this season with climate change, it can feel like too much. But bringing it down to that community level as well, what can we do as a community? And then those stories too, those success stories are super important for, like, inspiring others. Right? And I I love hearing about, you know, action that students are able to take in their school and then they bring it out into their community as well. And then, you know, inspiring, other community efforts as well, in their area and then in other areas. And then it always seems like at least, you know, 1 or 2 of those kids ends up making that their career. So, really important to have that exposure right into all these different areas.

Erin Garrett: 23:52

And especially with, like, climate change, you know, it's affecting a lot of different things. So there's a lot of different actions that we can take in ways that we can help and and ways to empower kids to know a little bit more and then just be more informed. Right? Like you said, and more ready to help and have information and answers and thoughts and ideas to help as we move forward with with dealing with whatever climate change brings. Right?

Peggy Anesi: 24:18

Yeah. And my main reference is to bring the climate wordage, the vocabulary, you know, the the vernacular in after as an after effect. Here's all these things we just did, and, oh, by the way, it helps us with climate change. Mhmm. What? You know, because if we put it in the forefront, it becomes like, I don't know because we've already we've already over overused. We've already thrown it too hard in people's faces. Not we, us, but they didn't you know, we didn't we didn't get this we didn't get it from the scientists to digest it forever. You know, help them be digestible, and I bring it in I bring it in last. So they're like, oh, it didn't it didn't hurt me. You know?

Abigail Garofalo: 24:53

Yeah. I think that term too can feel very obscure and somewhere else sometimes. It's not just about the way it's been thrown in. It's also about the oh, it's climate. Like, what am I supposed to do about that?

Abigail Garofalo: 25:07

I have as much control over that as the weather that it's gonna be that day. Right? Like, and so that feels very overwhelming and out of control for people versus, like, what can my community do to respond to the flooding that's occurring in my area? Not that over the course of the year, the average temperature change and says higher 2 degrees. Right? Like, that's a much more obscure. I was gonna add to Erin's point too about the the careers is what I also love is and what I've realized a lot in this job is, you know, we don't just need researchers. We don't just need scientists. We need people who are good at graphic design and good at communicating with people about climate change, and we need people who, have lots of different jobs when it comes to climate change, and not even related jobs. Like, they're in a company, but they're somebody who cares a lot and wants to head up their their local green team or whatever, or is a community member and wants to head up some some different aspects and and, you know, they're also someone who is a voice in their community. So it's not just about going into the job. It's about the mindset that you bring into the everyday choices of your life and the the way that you talk to people about these grand challenges that we're facing.

Peggy Anesi: 26:29

Well and I used to tell people 15 years ago was my big my big takeaway for kids was the jobs you were you could have aren't even don't even have titles yet. I used that for years because they weren't. There wasn't titles yet, but they could go into the environmental studies, and there would be a job. We don't know what the title's gonna be. Now I'm thinking, wait a minute. There should be. We should be at the other end of this education piece putting together like what Boise has and look for all the jobs, the computer person, the person who does, you know, land management, the person who does graphic design. We should be at the other end of that designing what those positions look like by community, small, medium, and large so that when they get out of school, they're aiming at something. You know? But it's funny how 30 years in the field, and they should go, oh, that was really cool to say back then, but now we probably should be putting those jobs there so they have a a target and stay on stay on target.

Peggy Anesi: 27:29

Right? But that was a that came to mind, like, a week ago, and I was like, because I'm thinking about this. I'm like, we need something for them to aim at, and communities need to know they need these people. Right? And start putting that in their budgets and, funding and looking for, you know, federal support or whatever it is that supports knowledge and this stuff. This stuff, you guys will have to look it up. This this boisewatershed.org stuff is is awesome. It's just really awesome.

Erin Garrett: 27:58

That's great. And those have been some really good examples, you know, kind of forward thinking of what, we can kind of set kids up to do in the future. But can you talk about programs that kids can get involved in now to address real world environmental issues?

Peggy Anesi: 28:16

Yeah. You know, my, what I do with with my group, we we have a pretty active forest preserve. And what I like is the family effect because we're getting those those people that are now having children. There used to be my campers, and they're bringing me their children now. Right? Good lord. And so I'm like, okay. If they if if if they that that age group just will given these app given the opportunities are not shared, you know, this is how you do it. Right? Sometimes we're just going a 100 miles an hour.

Peggy Anesi: 28:44

So get that family out there and, you know, do the tree plantings. We have a lot of community science things that they can do together. Your bigger kids, take them to a city meeting, you know, that has a water issue or something going on so they can see what big people are dealing with and that they care enough to deal with it. With middle school, my middle school group I did for the last 3 years, these girls are all heading toward biology environment because they were given a voice on how to reduce the run you know, reduce the runoff off of their school grounds, my G Force Girls' STEM club. And we just finalized, and we just got their how to be a good neighbor to their watershed sign that they that was their final step to the basin they planted.

Peggy Anesi: 29:27

It is 30 inches high by 7 feet wide, and I as I drive into town, I see people reading the sign. It's that big. You can see people standing there, and they're reading it like it's a ginormous book. The kids can now go back there and see that they made an impact. And the the kids who are who were 8th graders at the time said the reason they the no. They were the 7th graders. They said, we were told in 5th grade when we walked over here, they let us plant prairie plants to attach us to our soon to be middle school, and then they mowed it over. Okay. That made it it hurt them, and nobody thought it that it mattered. So they gave them something that mattered and then took it away. So we fixed it, and we fixed it so big nobody can get rid of it because it has a 30 inch by 7 foot sign in front of it. Right? And they're happy. So we need to help them. They're members of our community, but we treat them like, oh, it's okay.

Peggy Anesi: 30:22

They won't know or they don't get it. You guys, my kids at camp I looked at my kids last week at camp. We do a free time, and it's nature thematic day care. Their their emotional and physical safety are my first priority. The environmental scene that brings them there is the 3rd, and then we try to fill their days with with information. And these kids, I'm looking around at our free time. We give them physical boundaries, and then we stand out of their way and watch. We don't have a toy. We don't even have a bandana. They have nothing, and they know how to go and play. But for some reason, they don't know how to get out of their house into their yard. And it's like, there's nothing. There's not a toy. And these kids are just and finally, we're just like, you know what? Let's just let them forget the 30 minutes. It was 45 minutes, an hour, and they're like, when are we done with free time? I'm like, we're done now. We can be done now. Because I realized how important that was to them not to have to listen to us talkie, talkie, talkie. We have the most chatty group of 7 to 9 year olds. And let me tell you, they killed us with their joy last week. 37 and a half hours of joy every every week, ladies. And, so it just made me feel like, okay. We all innately know how this works and how attacked we are. We just have lost kind of the contact. And And when we make contact, that's when we can make change with climate and make change with sustainability and make those things happen.

Abigail Garofalo: 31:45

Yeah. I'll add. I, I interview Master Naturalists every year. We do training every year. And I end up inter 1 I used to interview, like, 70 to 90. Now I'm not so crazy. Now I do more like 50. And so every year, I always ask them. And even in the application, we ask them, you know, what? Tell us about your interest in nature.

Abigail Garofalo: 32:06

What, you know, what was your first memory of nature even? And I always get connections from people. I I very rarely get ones that are like, I visited this crazy place elsewhere, and that's what did it for me. It's 98% of the time people who are like, I grew up doing x, y, and z, and I did this with my family, or I did this with this really close mentor person to me. And it's never about that they learned the names of things. It's never about yeah. There are this other

Peggy Anesi: 32:43

summer with my grandparents. That was I get that one.

Abigail Garofalo: 32:46

Yes. Yeah. There's, like, this familial inner love connection that people have with this space that they just feel just, like, heart cracked wide open, and we're talking people who are paying to take a course and then to be a long term volunteer with us. Like, that's to me like, that's commitment. Yeah. I think about that a lot. It's like, that's a very common theme, and I'd be interested to actually if any researchers are listening to this and would like access to some of that data to see how you know, what are some common themes we see in building connections with nature, because, yeah, I just feel like we see those common themes of Yeah. How we do that, and and it usually starts with youth. And if we get people who started as an adult, they didn't have that experience as a youth, and then they were able to foster it either with their kids or they found it, in, you know, a point of stress in their life. And I just yeah. It's it's so valuable to see that.

Peggy Anesi: 33:44

So you always get the ones I get the ones that say, I'm doing this because this is what I always wished I had done for a career, but I was a nurse and I was a this. Yeah.

Abigail Garofalo: 33:52

Yeah. I get that one a lot, or I'm looking for a career change. We get a couple of younger folks up here who are like, yeah. I went into this, and I always really just liked birds, and then I I didn't then I didn't think it was plausible. And now I'm doing this. And so I'm like, welcome.

Peggy Anesi: 34:07

I see feel valid in what I chose to do for a living when they do that. I'm like, see, I knew I couldn't be a surgeon. I should be a surgeon. Okay. There was some educational issues there too. Right? But, yeah, I always love when I hear that because and a lot of them are like I get nurses and chemists and, radiologists. I get I get these really, I could never have been these people, and they're like, this is really what I wanted to do. I'm like, oh, this is cool because this is what I do. You know?

Erin Garrett: 34:36

Thanks so much, Peggy, for sharing your knowledge about how we can empower kids, but not only kids, everyone around us, our communities. Right? To think about climate and think about how that impacts us on our day to day basis and what we can do to just be more in tune with our environment. Right? So on that note, we're going to finish our episode with our everyday observation where we highlight the mundane and normal of our environment that's actually really interesting, which is right on theme with our discussion today. So, Abigail, what is your everyday observation?

Abigail Garofalo: 35:12

Yeah. So for a couple of years, I would notice just in the morning, if I came out in the morning before, like, the sun was really hot or anything, these little mushrooms that were growing just kind of like anywhere in my yard, but I mainly noticed them in the mulch. And then this like, a couple of days ago, I noticed them in my lawn, and I was like, you know what? I'm a scientist. I am an educator in natural resources. I have the tools and the power to discover what this is.

Abigail Garofalo: 35:40

And I had already, like, noticed. I was like, they're gone by the afternoon. So that's like a really interesting weird thing, but makes sense because fungus like moisture and usually dries out by then. So I finally, you know, went on iNaturalist and did some looking, and it's a milky cone cap mushroom. Very funny name apparently. So I have, like, other names. I haven't done too much research on it to learn what it is other than you just can't eat it. And then the really what spurred me to look into it was, like, is it safe for my children to pick it? Because now they're old enough to be like, what's this? And, like, grab it out of the ground and pick it around and stuff.

Abigail Garofalo: 36:13

So I just wanted to make sure because I'm not a mycologist. I don't know much about mushrooms and fungus, and I wanted to make sure, is it safe to touch? That's really where I was at with my point. And I thought that it is, but, yeah, they're, like, not ideal for for eating. And I was like, sure. Wasn't go wasn't

Peggy Anesi: 36:26

Not ideal?

Abigail Garofalo: 36:28

Like, I was like, I don't know what that means, but maybe just don't eat it. Will it kill me? I don't know. But what should I so

Peggy Anesi: 36:35

That that that sounds like it could do something, but not take you out. But it could be

Abigail Garofalo: 36:40

Yeah. Yes. So, but, yeah, they were like, it's a it's it's common, but it's, like, telling of that particular mushroom that it just disappears in the afternoon because of it just is more of a morning and as the sun comes up and it it goes away and then new fungus form overnight. And so or new new, like, fruiting bodies form overnight. And so I just thought it was really interesting and just a cool part of my yard to have. So

Peggy Anesi: 37:05

Awesome. Don't lick them. You never know.

Erin Garrett: 37:08

Alright, next up. Peggy? What's your everyday observation?

Peggy Anesi: 37:13

It it brought me great joy the other day. I see it every summer, and it's always robins in my yard. So there's, they're anting, and this considered they're passive anting. A lot of birds do this anting thing. They find an ant hill. They disrupt it. Active anting is where the bird will pick it up and actually, like, rub it on their body, but the robins tend to, like, flip their tail under themselves. It's this funniest thing. And, basically, they're they're irritating the ant to attack, and it's a certain subfamily of ants I've, from my understanding, from my friend Pam.

Peggy Anesi: 37:45

And they because they literally spray or ex excuse, formic acid. So there's a lot of theories. So these are all theories, but my favorite one that makes the most sense to my head is, lice control. So they can get rid of pests on their own body because what they do when they pass an ant is they let they get them angry. The ants are all putting out you know, they're basically it's like a pheromone, but it's it's formic acid as they crawl through their feathers.

Peggy Anesi: 38:10

So they're making the lice want to leave their body. So they're they're they're taking care of themselves by de-licing themselves, making the ants angry. They don't often, eat them. You'll see them kind of pinch some to get them really rocking and bad because they're like, come on, go. And then they just sit there and shuffle around, and they're just covered in ants. And then pretty soon, they start picking them and pushing them off. And I don't know if they eat some of them, but then they leave. But I just think it's and sure enough, every time they do it, I go somewhere and I go check-in the yard, and there's an anthill. And there are different ant that the ones that keep getting in my yard in my house this year, which are the odiferous ones, and they do stink, when you squish them. Sorry. I did squish one to see if it was them, and it is them. They're stinkers. There's plenty more. This one. Right? Darn ants.

Abigail Garofalo: 38:55

I Peggy, I don't know. Again, audio medium. I Erin and I are just looking so shocked. I don't know, Erin, about you, but I'm not I know you're not a bird person either. I'm definitely not a bird person. Don't know much about birds, but I did not know this was a thing. Never

Peggy Anesi: 39:12

Really? Oh my gosh. I'm glad.

Abigail Garofalo: 39:15

So Glad it's I'm so excited to observe it. Yeah.

Peggy Anesi: 39:19

I love it. Every year, I stop what I'm doing and go, that is the coolest thing. No matter if it's right or wrong about you know, one of the suggestions is, you know, that they're de-licing because it's formic acid. I like that answer. I think that's I think they should know how to take care of themselves. Right? Oh, I'm so excited to share something different.

Abigail Garofalo: 39:36

Now that we all need to process this information and go find it in nature a little bit more, Erin, why don't you close this out?

Erin Garrett: 39:42

Alright. So I have been teaching a summer library program about oak trees this year. So, each summer I develop a new program for, like, elementary age kids, and then I take it around to all of our local libraries. And this year we chose oak trees, because they're awesome as hopefully you heard on a previous podcast episode. But one of the things that I do is where I am in southern Illinois, we have, depending on which county you're in, between like 16 19 different oak species that you can find in an individual county. And we have a huge number of the, biggest oaks in their species also that you can find in the big tree register which is run through Illinois Extension. But a lot of the kids that we have around here, this is what happens when you grow up in a place. You don't necessarily realize what's in your backyard and how backyard, meaning natural areas nearby, and how awesome it is. One of the things that we did is take a tape measure and put it on the ground to show the diameter of the biggest tree in the biggest oak tree in their county where the program is at.

Erin Garrett: 40:56

So in a few of the counties, it's like 8 and a half feet diameter is how big these oak trees are. So we put the tape measure out and we make a circle with our hands to show how big the tree is. And the kids cannot handle it or believe that that's true. And I'm like, it's right it's 10 minutes from where we are right here. You can go hiking on this trail. You can find this tree. You could take a picture hugging it. Got a big sign by it with their certificate and, that's been really fun. Also too, because then, you know, all the adults in the room were like, oh, I had no idea. We're gonna, like, take our family out and go explore that area.

Erin Garrett: 41:32

But it's been really fun to it's just another, you know, really cool thing that you can do with your family and go see. And they're throughout the state. So and I'm sure other I don't know if other states do this too, but it's something definitely for our listeners to look into and check out. And if you're going on a vacation or a trip to a state park, there's a lot of them that are there. Some of them are on private property so you can't actually get to the location, but there's a lot of different trees that you can explore. And it's another thing that gets kids excited, right, about finding something outside, like going on like a scavenger hunt, right, to try to find the big trees. So that's been my observation this summer, just, working with kids and getting them excited about trees.

Abigail Garofalo: 42:10

That's a great activity. I'm gonna steal it.

Erin Garrett: 42:13

Do it. Alright. Well, thanks again, Peggy. It's always a joy to have you on the podcast. We always love chatting with you, and, I'm sure we'll have you back soon.

Peggy Anesi: 42:25

Well, I appreciate your time.

Erin Garrett: 42:26

Well, this has been another episode on the Everyday Environment podcast. Check us out next week where we talk with Sarah Sellars all about carbon markets.

Abigail Garofalo: 42:39

This podcast is a University of Illinois Extension production, hosted and edited by Abigail Garofalo, Erin Garrett, and Amy Lefringhouse.

Matt Wiley: 42:50

University of Illinois Extension.