New season, new puns: the season 3 preview

Abigail: 00:06

Welcome to another episode of the Everyday Environment podcast where we explore the environment we see every day. I'm your host, Abigail Garofalo.

Amy: 00:14

And I'm your cohost, Amy Lefringhouse.

Abigail: 00:17

And today, we are here with some very special folks here to talk about the new season of everyday environment, season three. So we are back. We have a few changes this season, this fall, and we have some new hosts this season to introduce you all to. You may have noticed that our wonderful host Erin Garrett, or maybe you haven't noticed because you haven't listened to the season yet, but she is not hosting this season and that is because she has been on maternity leave for the recording section that we've been doing for this for this season. And so we have greatly missed her, greatly greatly.

Abigail: 00:58

Amy and I are not as organized as her, but that did give us the opportunity to invite some new hosts and some new members of the everyday environment team. So we have with us Darci Webber and Karla Griesbaum. And so I would love for both of you to introduce yourselves and say your name when you, introduce yourself so that way people know your voice with your name.

Darci: 01:22

Sure. I can start. I'm Darci Webber. Super excited to be on the podcast here and to have have wonderful conversations with so many guest speakers and learn a lot about what they do and wildlife in our area. So I'm a natural resources educator like many on this podcast here.

Darci: 01:38

I'm based in Bloomington and cover Livingston, McLean, and Woodford Counties. And working with Extension, a lot of my work is supporting our Master Naturalist program. We have a great base of volunteers and they do a lot of programming. So I am often lesson plan prepping, getting supplies, writing new curriculum materials. I'm currently working on some new kits that go out to libraries and schools and community programs.

Darci: 02:03

So a lot of behind the scenes prepping of educational materials, writing articles, doing presentation, and then actually going out and teaching as well. So it's always a fun day when I get to go play in the river for macroinvertebrates or be out in the woods with some second graders. So a lot of fun things in this job that keep things fresh, and you're always doing something new, learning something out in outside or learning new research here in the office.

Abigail: 02:28

That's, like, the dreaded question I get when I'm, like, talking to prospective students and things like, what's your day to day in Extension look like? And I'm like, yeah. Always different. Always different. I can't speak to you about even, like, week to week is different.

Abigail: 02:45

It depends on the year. So so yeah. Well, awesome, Darci. We are so excited to have you. It's been really great being on interviews with you and just hearing you talk with the or with the different guests and and all those different pieces.

Amy: 02:58

I was just gonna mention, Darci just got back from a long international trip with Extension. So I tell us I forget again, Darci, where you went.

Darci: 03:08

Yeah. I went to Sri Lanka with the College of ACES for Global Academy. And so it was a really neat trip that we that professors and researchers from campus along with two Extension staff went overseas to work on some global partnerships and look at their environmental education, what research projects they're working on. And it was really great collaboration of, global mindset in this environment that we're all interconnected, what we all impact each other. And so just being able to share great minds and thoughts of how they would ask us, how do you handle monkeys in your garden?

Darci: 03:42

Or what do you do to keep elephants out of your crops? And we don't have those problems here, but we were able to share about water issues and sharing about just different topics that relate to agriculture. So it's a really neat experience. Super thankful for the opportunity to go and to be able to share about what I learned here now with local staff and local communities. So there's an article written about it if anyone wants to go read it.

Darci: 04:05

But, yeah, super super fun

Amy: 04:08

Awesome. We're glad that you represented us over there, Darci. We'll have to put that article in the show note.

Abigail: 04:12

Awesome. Well, Karla, go ahead and introduce yourself.

Karla: 04:15

Yeah. Hi. I'm Karla Griesbaum. So I'm another natural resources and environment and energy educator. I am based out of Champaign, and it's a really great location to be because I'm close to campus.

Karla: 04:27

So I get to make really close relationships with professors and students. So I have a lot of resources. And while they're available to everybody in the state, I feel like I can connect with a lot of those people in person and on campus, which is a lot of fun. I was really excited to be invited to cohost with Amy and Abigail because it was just an easy yes. I feel like this is so fun, and I love talking to people, and I love learning new things.

Karla: 05:00

That's kind of part of the job, so I'm really excited to be here. Some of the favorite things I love doing in this position is just bringing people closer to nature, and nature can be defined as many things even if it's just your backyard and discovering things in your backyard. So especially for urban communities, figuring out how to be outside and connecting with the world around you, be it youth or adults. Another things I like teaching about are climate change. I'm a systems person, so I like thinking about ecology.

Karla: 05:33

So not narrowing in on one particular touch subject, but how it all kinda comes together and works together. So thinking about the microbes in the soil and how they relate to the birds of prey in the air. It's all connected, I love teaching about those connections. I like talking about easy ways that we can help wildlife and the world around us. I teach about backyard foraging.

Karla: 05:58

We work with our nutritionists to make cooking classes using forage materials. Just all those different ways that you can connect with nature.

Abigail: 06:08

I've loved being in in these podcasts with Karla because you, like, you and I think very, like, systematically, and you, like, think that, like, very deeper way that I just haven't I'm like, oh, yeah. What about that? Like, I hadn't thought of that, and you're an excellent educator. I love what, your foraging class that we went to for our in service for our staff and just, like, seeing the way that you talk about the different aspects of the natural world is really, really cool. So it's been great to have you on this season and and hear all the ways that we just are learning about wildlife, which is a topic I don't know a lot exciting.

Abigail: 06:45

Well, as part of just being part of the podcast, you know, our our audience has gotten a little bit to know about what Amy and I love about the natural world and Erin as well. Darci and Karla, what do you love about the natural world? Like, what is your favorite part?

Darci: 07:02

I think for me, my favorite part is the the diversity of everything we see. I've had really not only Sri Lanka, but I've had really great experiences traveling abroad and seeing different ecosystems, seeing different species of wildlife. And so it's just really neat to think of everything that's on this world, everything that we get to experience, and then to have just a little pocket of that in our everyday life. And so whether that's time in Tunisia where I was in the Sahara Desert or time in Turkey where I'm in a super urban area, and yet there's still local parks everywhere with evergreens and squirrels and birds. It's just really neat to see the creativity of it all and all the beauty of it. And so that's what gets me excited that, like, we have such a unique state here with everything that goes on, but then on a global scale as well.

Darci: 07:50

Specifically, I really enjoy the water as that's a fun ecosystem not only for the animals that live in the water, but the animals who use that as a drinking source, as the animals who migrate through different patches of water. And so just seeing how that interacts with soil erosion, how that impacts the land use, and, how the land shifts over time is a really neat aspect to see how water is important in our environment.

Abigail: 08:15

I always say water is the most powerful force on earth. That's my favorite thing to mention. When I talk about soils, it's usually that's what I'm talking about, but you bring up a lot of different pieces that bring all the ecology together. So really cool. Alright, Karla.

Karla: 08:29

I feel like there's a lot of parallels with me and Darci and what we love about the natural world. I think the thing I love the most is that there's always always more to discover, and it's so beautiful, and it makes me feel so good. So I can go out my backyard for hours and learn something new every day just by going out and observing or working. And there's just always something new to learn, or I can travel. I you know, we've traveled around The US and all these different ecosystems.

Karla: 08:59

Even in Illinois, like, I can go half hour east of here, and that natural area is different than the natural area right here in my hometown. Everything is just so different, and it's so interesting all the time. And it makes me just so happy being outside, just that mental health portion of it. Like, I really feel that really deeply being outside. So I'll always choose outside.

Karla: 09:28

Even when I'm getting eaten by mosquitoes or chiggers, I'll always choose outside. And I also love being around water. I'd say my favorite part is being on a lake or a river or by a wetland. There's something very centering about water for me, and maybe, Abigail, that's because it is a powerful force. Maybe I just love being around it because it makes me feel small.

Karla: 09:55

I don't know. Like like, I just it it's very centering for me, and it's kind of like that for my kids too. Like, we're all happiest when we're around water. So, yeah, just the peace that comes from it and then sharing it with others. Very cool. Yeah. I feel like it's also, like, great connector. Right? We definitely had that conversation last season where we were like, it is the great connector. Right? Like, people formulate around it. It's never independent. Right? It's a big decision maker. It's all the different pieces in one and, yeah, like, powerful and community.

Karla: 10:30

Always flowing, always changing.

Abigail: 10:33

Yeah. And I know it's considered abiotic in, like, a scientific terms, but, like, it is alive.

Amy: 10:39

Well, we're really happy to have both of you, Darci and Karla, this season, of course. We've already said that. And we're happy to have you on the team too because our natural resources educator team has expanded in the last couple years around the state of Illinois, so there's more of us around the state to provide natural resource programming in Illinois. So we're really happy to have you two on our team. Abigail, you have transitioned just very, very recently to a new position, with us here, in the state.

Amy: 11:10

Tell us what you're doing now.

Abigail: 11:12

Yeah. So not that it's shrunk because they're gonna fill my old position, but I used to be at, like, an educator in Cook County for natural resources, and now I am the state specialist for the master naturalist program. So on a statewide level, I get to lead the Illinois master naturalist program and provide support for people like you, Amy, and Karla, and Darci, and and all the people coordinating master naturalist programs across the state and, teaching them. And so, you know, helping determine curriculum and update it and and, make sure that our master naturalists are able to do the work that they want to do that needs to be done in Illinois. There's and and I've had the opportunity over just over the last few months to just, like, even talk with all the coordinators, and and it's been really just inspiring. I've always loved the master naturalists in this group of people because they're just they're just, like, such a community of people that are like, I just wanna go out and do good things. They're normally like I ask, you know, everyone like, what's the, you know, like, the vibes of your master naturalists? Are they chill? Are they low maintenance, high maintenance? Like, what and everybody's like, they just, like, wanna go out and do good things.

Abigail: 12:25

Like, they don't want to be hindered from doing good things, and they want like, they would rather go do those good things than, like, come and meet with me. Like and, like and because they're like, I could be out burning buckthorn or, you know, removing garlic mustard or whatever. So it's just been really cool to see and, to get the chance to support that community through the state's been really, really neat and also a whirlwind because it's just a a learning curve for me, but I'm really excited to be doing it. But I still get to do this project, which I was like that was, like, one of my first questions when I got this job was like, do I still get to do everyday environment? Dr. Kar was like, yes.

Abigail: 13:03

Yes. You do. I was like, great. Thank you. So so, yeah, still here.

Abigail: 13:07

Still everyday environment host. But, that's my new role.

Amy: 13:10

Awesome. We are so happy to have you. Yeah. Love Duane. He was awesome.

Amy: 13:15

He's retired now. If anyone knew Duane Friend, of course, he's been in with Extension for a long time. So we wish him a happy retirement, but we are also excited to have Abigail.

Abigail: 13:26

Yeah. I I definitely hope to carry on, like, that legacy. Like, if you all kind of know the history, like, Peggy and Duane were around when the Master Natural's program started in Illinois. And so to have that relationship with those colleagues and understand the context in which the program was created and to help carry on that legacy, think, is a really important piece of my role. So something I really wanna honor.

Amy: 13:50

Let's dive into to next this upcoming season.

Abigail: 13:54

Yeah. We don't have as many good puns this year. Yeah.

Amy: 13:57

I don't know about that. I know dive in just doesn't dive in and and this next season doesn't I mean, I guess it could connect a little bit or relate a little bit, but not as much as water.

Abigail: 14:07

Last season, we went on a wild ride with water. We traversed the water network of Illinois, learned all different things. What's in store for season three, y'all?

Amy: 14:19

Wildlife. Getting wild. Let's see. Wait. Getting otterly inspired by nature based learning.

Amy: 14:26

I found a pun on that. We are not lion wildlife is up next.

Abigail: 14:32

You're not mountain lion.

Karla: 14:35

Right. Makes We're more

Amy: 14:37

buzzing with new ideas. That is so funny. We are let's see. There's another one here. Soaring.

Amy: 14:47

We're soaring like eagles into this new season.

Abigail: 14:51

Oh. Amazing. Amazing. Wildlife, it's gonna be great. We're pretty excited.

Abigail: 14:59

Karla, we'll start with you. What are you most excited about when it comes to this wildlife season?

Karla: 15:04

So wildlife was my gateway drug into the natural world. I love animals. That's why I grew up in Chicago. So, I mean, besides forest preserves, didn't have too much just natural areas around me besides the trees that grew around houses. And but I loved animals, and that was when I was deciding what to go into.

Karla: 15:30

When I went to U of I for my bachelor's degree, I wanted to do wildlife conservation because I love it so much. So I did wildlife conservation was my specialty, getting my undergraduate degree. And so I got to work at the wildlife medical clinic for a little bit. All my classes were kind of based on that wildlife conservation part. So that was kind of my entryway into this whole world.

Karla: 15:59

And then you kind of get deeper and deeper in it where it's like, okay. Wildlife leads you to learn about the habitats that support them and the issues that they're facing. So then I became a plant person. And after becoming a plant person, I realized that there's this whole ecosystem that supports plants. So I became a microbe person and a fungus person, and there's just I don't know.

Karla: 16:24

You just keep kinda going down the tunnel into deeper and deeper things. So I think that's why I consider myself an ecologist now is because I see all these different things and how they're connected and how to support the things that I love. We need to look at everything that's surrounding it. But wildlife, I think just my 10 year old girl heart gets the most excited when talking about wildlife.

Abigail: 16:50

Amazing. Amy, what are you thinking? What are you excited about?

Amy: 16:54

Well, I would consider myself a plant person now as an adult just because plants stay still and I don't get to see wildlife very often, but I do live on the West Side of the state and we are very focused on, you know, wildlife habitat and wildlife and outdoor recreation. We live on the river. We have a lot of, you know, fishing, commercial fishing, recreational fishing. Obviously, hunting over here on our side of the state is very part of our culture. So I've talked and and worked in the in the, I guess, wildlife recreation field for most of my career, learning about that.

Amy: 17:37

So I was kind of, like, excited to just dive in to to learn deeper about some of the things that are happening right now in Illinois with with different wildlife species. What are the new research techniques that are that are and just, like, research that's being done right now. So I was just kind of excited to to listen to the experts and learn from the experts this season. And, boy, we did. We learned a lot for sure.

Abigail: 18:03

Yeah. Oh my gosh. Did we? Did we learn episode, we were like, I didn't know that.

Amy: 18:08

I know. Every episode every episode afterwards, we're always like, wow. That was amazing. It was great to talk to the these folks. So, yeah. Stick with us through the season. You will you will learn a lot.

Abigail: 18:20

Darcy, what are you most excited about when it comes to season three?

Darci: 18:24

I have two initial thoughts that come to mind. And so wildlife in general, it's always the most exciting in my opinion when you actually get to see the wildlife. Whether that's a deer crossing the street or a turtle in your backyard, like, think those are the pockets that help get us excited about wildlife. And then relating to the podcast, I think it was also really neat how many different resources we are able to help teach people about wildlife. So when Joy was sharing about the wildlife website and Brodie was sharing about the Voice of the Wild podcast, like help giving tools to help people continue to learn about wildlife and just the community that's there that we all wanna be learning together and be outdoors together and experiences wildlife in a communal setting.

Abigail: 19:11

Yeah. That's a good point. Because there's just so many different pieces and so many different elements that I feel like we don't know about. Right?

Amy: 19:19

Each time we choose a theme for the season or just kind of like a direction for the season, we dive deep into that topic, and it's kinda just neat. Every season is neat like this because there are so many facets to that those themes. So we don't want to give away too much, but this season we go we go down at all different pathways, I guess, into wildlife. There's just just so many different, things we dive into.

Abigail: 19:46

Yeah. I was thinking a lot about this, and I was like, there are so many different cultural understandings of wildlife, like human elements that go with, like, the interactions of them, how we view conservation, and all these different pieces. And I was it was really exciting to explore that for me because I grew up in Central Illinois, but I wasn't part of, like, the hunting culture, like, the heritage of, like, wildlife in that in that sense. And so to explore that and then also to be able to, like, connect that with our state audience to be, like, these are all the different perspectives. We interview people from Cook County down to Southern Illinois and Western Illinois.

Abigail: 20:29

Like, we we interview people all across the state who have all these different roles when it comes to wildlife in Illinois and all these different jobs and in researching them and managing them and producing them in general. Right? So, like, all of these different pieces that come to what like, in the connecting pieces, Illinois wildlife and to be able to bring that to our audience to showcase, like, it's not just, like, this one view. It's not like this is how wildlife are treated and all these things. There's all these different perspectives and human interaction elements that occur Mhmm.

Abigail: 21:04

That connect us to this really important piece of Illinois. And so that was just really exciting to see and discover, and I maybe make a fool of myself a few times this season. Like, don't understand things, and I ask the dumb questions for you, maybe. Maybe I'll just see it from that perspective. Yeah.

Abigail: 21:24

But I I definitely have learned a lot, and Amy's been helping me. I'll send her the questions, and she'll be like, you can't say that. That's not.

Amy: 21:31

Yeah. You said that way better than I tried to say it, Abigail. I yeah. It is neat about the different, interaction, different cultural interaction, and just maybe everyday interaction, or sometimes challenges too with wildlife that we have around the state. So yeah, you said it a lot better than I did.

Abigail: 21:54

Too funny. Well, I guess, do we wanna give the audience some sneak peeks of what to expect this season?

Amy: 22:01

Let's do it.

Abigail: 22:02

Alright. Let's let's each give one, I guess. That way, we're not giving it all away, but we're, like, keeping people on the hook. Oh,

Amy: 22:11

there's a good one right off the top of your head.

Abigail: 22:15

Amy, you wanna go first?

Amy: 22:16

Oh gosh. I knew you were gonna say that. I don't wanna steal Darci's thunder because both her and I interviewed a researcher that focused on playing pocket gophers. And please join us in that episode to find out why they are named a pocket gopher. And you know, I wanna know why I thought they were named pocket gopher or maybe I should wait and like, yeah, you guys can find out why I thought they were pocket gophers or what comes to my mind when we started talking about the name of a Plains pocket gopher.

Amy: 22:54

But, yeah, we got to talk to our friends over there at U of I. They were talking about their research with plains pocket gophers, they are in Illinois, and they are around. And, he talks a lot about where he found them and just what what they found out about them. So it was a really interesting discussion. That was with Nathan Alexander.

Amy: 23:19

He talked to us and works for U of I, and it was a neat neat conversation.

Abigail: 23:25

Nice. Well, we'll transition into Darci then.

Darci: 23:28

Yeah. I'm just gonna tag along there. And potatoes don't swim. So I'm just gonna leave that there, and you have to listen to the podcast to get the context.

Abigail: 23:41

Potatoes Don't Swim. Episode name.

Amy: 23:44

The title of the blog, the title of the podcast, Potatoes Don't Swim. Please tune in to find out why.

Abigail: 23:53

Yeah. Say that one will be released in October, so you're gonna have to stick with us. Yeah. And it's gonna So alright, Karla.

Karla: 24:02

It's so funny because I did not get to record the pocket gophers episode, but I've heard so much about it from you guys. Like, it sounds amazing. And, yeah, I I'm looking forward to that one. So I'm gonna give you two sneak peeks. And one is so I, you know, I already mentioned that I grew up in Chicago, and wildlife is kind of what brought me to the natural world.

Karla: 24:25

My dad was a hunter. My brother was a hunter. And I am not. I can't kill. I have trouble killing plants because I just don't have it in me to to pull the trigger on things, so to speak.

Karla: 24:38

But we will learn from Curt St. Claire how hunting benefits wildlife. So if you are a skeptic of hunting and fishing, listen to that podcast episode to learn how it's actually helping wildlife and enhancing their survival. And then my second sort of sneak peek is you will discover how to gather information about wildlife without ever seeing or touching them.

Amy: 25:08

Oh. Nice. That's a good one. That's a good one.

Abigail: 25:12

All of these are episodes I did not also get to sit in on. Excited to listen to them. I always actually am, like, on Thursdays, I'm like, oh, great. I have something to listen to now in my car during the season because I get really excited to listen to the ones that I don't get to edit or or, be a part of because it's just so exciting because we've been planning them for so long. So I also have a few. One, I got to sit in on, which was an interview we didn't think that we'd get, and then we were able to so we got to talk with Chris Anchor from the Forest Preserves of Cook County. He's been with the Forest Preserves for, like, what is it, Amy? Like, forty years?

Amy: 25:55

Yeah. He was amazing. Yeah.

Abigail: 25:57

Yeah. It was really cool to talk to him because he had this, like, long term perspective of wildlife management and all these just different pieces of just understanding, like, why it's important to to study and understand wildlife. And so just getting talk to him, we mainly talked about the urban coyote research project and Mhmm. The difference between, like, urban and and, like, rural coyotes was was, like, fascinating to think about them. And so it was just, yeah, it was just really, really cool to talk to somebody who'd been in the field so long who basically built up, like, a wildlife management department in a major forest preserves.

Amy: 26:36

Yeah.

Abigail: 26:37

And then also just, like, to see that long term perspect like, you don't get to see that in a lot of research because oftentimes these kinds of studies are, like, the length of a grad school project. And so to get to see these, like, long term studies and the impacts on that, which is really, really neat. And he was just really, really cool to talk to.

Amy: 26:56

Yeah. Yeah. My favorite part of that episode was when he just talks about the relationship between coyotes and human health and, you know, and just the relationship there. And if you, like like me, can't make the connection right off the bat, you know, tune in because Chris talks a lot about the importance of studying coyotes and other wildlife and how those studies can help improve human health. And I just never I have never thought of that perspective ever before ever, you know, before that podcast.

Amy: 27:35

So it was really kind of like, you know, brain shifting a little bit, you know. I that's what I love about these podcasts and interviewing these folks is, like, I always have a little bit of a brain shift or a little bit of a new perspective or just, like, new information that I'm taking with me when I'm approaching other situations or, you know, just different issues that I'm working on within my job or communication with folks in my job. So, yeah, I just that was that was a really neat kind of angle that we talked about during Chris' episode.

Abigail: 28:08

Yeah. And then what what was really cool about that is the next episode, which we had actually recorded a couple days before, in that in our series is about, the movement of armadillos in Illinois, in which we get to talk to Agustin Jimenez, and he is a researcher in Carbondale like, at SIU Carbondale on epidemiology, like like wildlife zoo zoologic disease. And so when we first reached out to him, we just expected to talk about armadillos, but then he really, like, dove into, like, disease management and, like, studying disease. And so to get those two perspectives back to back of, like, this is Chris having, like, the, like, on the ground field management of wildlife, he and then, like, to talk to Agustin about, you know, the research of that and and understanding it and how we can apply that and, like, how those two have conversations with each other. It was just really, really neat.

Abigail: 29:08

I think, like, those kinds of pieces are just something I didn't know a lot about either. I'm I'm also, like, I'm a soils lady. I am normally, like, that's how I got into it. And then soil to me is, like, the meeting of geology and biology. So it's, like, all those pieces come together.

Abigail: 29:23

And so and famously, I'm not a bird person, and so I'm, like, wildlife over there. And this season was just really, really cool and eye opening to see that all of these pieces really do come together and and interact with each other. And so so, yeah, it's it's got some cool stuff. This season's gonna be great. When we were planning it, we were like, we don't wanna just do, like, different thing, like, different animals.

Abigail: 29:48

Like, we wanna, like, look at all the different aspects of wildlife and, how we interact with them. And Go ahead, Amy.

Amy: 29:57

We had I can't pick a favorite, but but there are just some some really good ones. We talk in one episode with doctor Mark Davis about environmental DNA. I think, Karla, that was you and I, right, with doctor Davis? One, mind blowing. Environmental DNA or eDNA, if you've heard of that, you might, like me, not know a lot about it.

Amy: 30:21

And just that episode was really great. He's enthusiastic. He talks about just the change and the change, the breakthroughs, I guess, the the work that still needs to be done on using eDNA as a as a, you know, research process or method, but just the potential of it. And and he was really cool to talk to.

Karla: 30:48

And, you know, all of these speakers were so passionate, at least the ones that I know that I interviewed. They were just like, thank you for letting me talk about this subject some more, and they were great about answering questions and making it making the information really accessible.

Abigail: 31:06

I love that about this podcast too because I feel like we like, most of the people we talk to, this is, like, their first ever podcast that they've been on, and we're like, it's great. We're a great environment to hang out with. And they walk away saying, like, yeah. This was great. And because they just get to nerd out for, like, about an hour with us.

Abigail: 31:24

Hour where you just get to talk about what you care about and what you know. Like, we're not inviting you, asking you to come up with any talking points, like, all those things. So, yeah, people real it is a really, it's fun experience for us and for them. So I don't want our audience to be like, oh, yeah. And then we put them in the hot seat for an hour.

Amy: 31:43

Yes. No. No. We're learning as we go, so I think they like, you know, captive audience and folks that wanna learn more about their subject. You know?

Amy: 31:53

So that's cool.

Abigail: 31:54

Yeah.

Amy: 31:55

I have one more I have one more thing, thought. I know, Abigail, I can't stop talking, but buffalo or bison? We answered the question with Elizabeth Bach from Nachusa Grassland. We answered that question during that episode, so that's a good one too. Wanna shout out all the ones I was on.

Amy: 32:14

Like, yes. And that one and that one and that one.

Abigail: 32:18

Well, there's so much more to listen to this season. We've got a really great lineup of of of, researchers and field staff all across the state who are just doing some really cool work with wildlife. I guess I just wanna check-in with our group. Is there anything else that we wanna mention or or talk about when it comes to everyday environment?

Amy: 32:39

I will say that we do have, like, I think we end this season with some stuff with, things that that folks, listeners can do for wildlife on your own. So like every season, we usually try to give tips and ways that you can put your knowledge to action. So we do talk about with Peggy Notebart Museum folks up there, talk about how you can put your new learning into action and help wildlife around Illinois and do some things that that might, you know, that your maybe new passions take you.

Abigail: 33:12

Yeah. For sure. I was gonna add too just as far as everyday environment goes. You may be familiar. We always have a blog that goes with each podcast that's usually written by the guest.

Abigail: 33:23

So if you're if you really like something that they said, it's a more searchable medium. So if you're, like, trying to figure out what that was or if you want it, like, a shorter version, you felt inspired, but you your friends are annoyed with you sending them forty five minute podcast to listen to, you can just send them So that works too. And we also have a newsletter so you don't miss out on when every one is released. So our first release date is next week on, August 7. And so get subscribed so that way you can get an email every time a new podcast is released.

Abigail: 33:59

And then lastly, we aren't just blogs and web and and podcasts. We also have webinars this season. So we'll be hopefully featuring some Illinois research on Illinois wildlife. So we really wanna talk to Illinois researchers and, again, have them nerd out about, like, the cool things that they're discovering about Illinois wildlife. So those will be, over the course of the fall as well.

Abigail: 34:25

So get subscribed or check out our website so that way you can see, and and hear about all of these amazing things and you don't miss out on any updates. And then also, if you're new to the podcast and you're listening to this, definitely check out our past seasons. We did climate change for season one where we also talked to some really cool researchers and field staff. We did water for season two. Just some really great content out there that you can explore if you don't wanna wait every week and you want a couple fill ins during the week while you're waiting for the new episode of the of season three to come out.

Amy: 35:00

Awesome. I'm excited. Excited to get going.

Abigail: 35:04

Well, thank you, ladies, for hopping on to be part of this preview episode to give our audience some sneak peeks. I'm excited to hear more about this potato scenario Okay. And understand what's going on with that. So we'll be on the edges of our seat until October when we have Nathan on.

Karla: 35:24

Enjoy, everybody. It's a great season.

Abigail: 35:27

This has been another episode of the everyday environment podcast. Check us out next week for our first episode of season three where we talk with Joy O'Keefe about wildlife encounters.

Abigail: 35:39

This podcast is a University of Illinois Extension production hosted and edited by Abigail Garfoalo, Erin Garrett, Amy Lefringhouse, Karla Griesbaum, and Darci Webber. Marketing and communications are by Emily Steele.