Social and Emotional Learning: Making Science Accessible

Listen Now

Guest Information

Gwen Pearson is an award-winning science communicator and entomologist. In addition to her work writing for WIRED Magazine, Highlights For Kids, and other science news outlets, she's run an insect zoo and worked as an extension entomologist in various roles. She's now retired and is an outreach ambassador for the Xerces Society.

Show Notes & Links

In this episode, we talk about social and emotional learning as a way to engage all ages in science communication and education. 

• PBS website with developmental info for kids, including emotions, self-awareness, and social skills
• The DIFFERENT curriculum
• Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)

Transcript

Matthew: Welcome to Bug Banter with the Xerces Society where we explore the world of invertebrates and discover how to help these extraordinary animals. If you want to support our work go to xerces.org/donate.

Rachel: Hi, I'm Rachel Dunham in Missoula, Montana.

Matthew: And I'm Matthew Shepherd in Portland, Oregon.

Rachel: More than ever, communicating scientific information effectively is critical to conservation efforts. But how do we do that?

Rachel: To explore this topic is award-winning science communicator and entomologist, Gwen Pearson. In addition to her work writing for WIRED Magazine, Highlights for kids, and other scientific news outlets, she's run an insect zoo and worked as an extension entomologist in various roles. She's now retired as an Outreach Ambassador for the Xerces Society—Hey! That’s us! Haha.

Rachel: Welcome, Gwen! We’re so excited to have you here!

Gwen: Hello!

Matthew: Yeah, no, great. Thanks for joining us today, Gwen. I have to admit that I've followed your career and seen your name popping up in lots of different places over the years. So to have you as an Ambassador is awesome, and to get this chance to sit down and talk more about science communications is wonderful, too, so thank you. So, I mean, I need to start with the fundamental question is: why is communicating science important?

Gwen: I think all of us together have to make decisions about how to use Earth's resources. We want people to know what research says about what's the best way to farm to keep soil tillable and rich for future generations. We want to figure out how best we can conserve wild areas so that we can keep the systems we depend on for life running. And I always kind of think of Earth as a spaceship, and we don't want to disassemble it randomly for parts. And so we have to have air, and food, and water. And our living systems are things that we need. And so helping people understand how those work and why we need them is really important.

Gwen: Having said that, nobody wants to be told what to do. But usually folks want to know if there's a better way to do something, or something that they're doing doesn't work. And scientific journals are not accessible. They are frequently behind a very expensive paywall and they are written in really detailed jargon. I mean, I have a PhD in entomology and I cannot read many journal articles if they are not in my immediate field. You know, if it's in genomics, I'm like, “I have no idea.” Physics—no idea. Chemistry—no. And we all have areas of expertise. Like, I—my area of expertise is in bug nerdery and if I were to talk to say my car mechanic, I could not possibly understand the electronic systems of my car. I couldn't even begin. If I tried to read his manual—no clue.

Gwen: And so as experts in something, what we need to do is translate our jargon into somebody else's sort of normal language. And I get really crabby about people who say that what I do as a science writer is dumbing down, because it is not. It is translating. And it is making language accessible.

Gwen: So part of that means that I have to explain to someone or one of my readers why they should care about bugs, or bug research, or some other really random thing. And part of that is because the amount of information we have available to us right now is massive! So much information, so much entertainment, so many other really fun things we could be watching. And so I have to compete with all of that as a writer. And so the two things that I really end up focusing on are: things that answer a question like, “How do I do things?”, how to—. Or how do I entertain someone? And so having fun—. You know, the reasons we go to look for information is we want to have fun, we want to be social, or we want to figure out how to do something that we don't know how to do. And so those are kind of the two big things. And so just giving somebody a whole bunch of facts is not super persuasive.

Matthew: The alternative to that is what happens if science is not communicated?

Gwen: Sometimes that happens. Haha. And it's hard. It's really hard because¬ I think the biggest thing is that—you know, having worked in the news industry—science and news are not compatible. They have two completely different structures. So news is new. It's timely and it's very short. And for that matter, all media right now is very short. Like a one-minute video seems really long. And so being able to compact decades of research into one minute is not easy.

Gwen: So as scientists, we build our understanding over time. And it's not like we do an experiment and we're like, “Okay, well, we know it all now.” It is thousands of researchers arguing back and forth over decades that help us understand something. And as scientists, we also don't speak in absolutes. It's very rare for a scientist to say, “This is absolutely the way it is 100% of the time.” Because it isn't, right? If you work with nature, you know there is always an exception to everything. And so if you look at our papers at the end, there's always a, “This is where things went wrong in our experiment,” or, “This is why this thing that we did in the Upper Peninsula probably doesn't apply in Detroit,” because we want to be very clear: these are the things that we can say with certainty, and these are the things that we can't.

Gwen: That does not work for news. News wants certainty. News wants you to be—to have a feeling about the news, to feel the urgency of it, the importance of it. And so these two systems are just really not—they don't really go together that well. And so “Researchers Push Their Knowledge Incrementally Forward” is never going to be a great news story. Haha. And, you know, just like, “Maybe Researchers Know a Thing. We Think, Kind of.” No.

Gwen: And so the other piece of this is news stories are called stories for a reason—they have a beginning, and a middle, and an end, and they're a narrative. And we don't tell stories about data, we tell stories about people. And so part of what I have to do as a science writer—or for that matter, other science communicators—is to put people back into the story so that it becomes interesting, because just a graph is not compelling. I mean, okay, it is to a big nerd like me, but graphs are not—and also it depends on what the graph is. So this urgent short news reporting just doesn't match what we have. And so we have to really work hard to find ways to take this very—you know, to give the context for the things that we know in a medium that doesn't always do context.

Matthew: Yeah, no, I think that's very true. And as someone who's been involved with community engagement, education, communications for a long time, I think for sure that resonates with me—this need to try and take technical information and put it in a context that people can connect with and do something with it. Certainly for the work that Rachel and I do—and in a lot of what you do—I mean, it does feed back into conservation in some way. But scientists can't solve all the conservation issues on their own, can they?

Gwen: I wish, but no. Haha. No. It doesn't do any good if I have amazing research if nobody knows about it. We have to make decisions, each of us. And so autonomy is another thing that is really important to us, as Americans. We want to make our own decisions. And that's great. And so trying to find a way to fit what I know into the sort of value set of the people I'm talking to is a constant sort of adjustment.

Rachel: Yeah, we've kind of covered a bit of this already—and part of the reason we're having this conversation is because science communication isn't easy, as you've mentioned. Haha. Are there any other challenges that you haven't touched on yet? And have these challenges changed over time? I'm just thinking about social media—when you said like a one-minute video is really long now. I'm like, “When I was a kid, any video was like a big deal.” Haha. Things have changed so dramatically in the last few decades. How has that made science education more difficult? Or maybe it hasn't, and there's some silver linings there that are made easier—what do you think?

Gwen: I wish I had one weird trick to communicate science, but I do not. Haha. And I think definitely—. So I had a computer class in college as an undergraduate—it was on punch cards. So that is how far we have come. Every day, every year, there's a new thing. And so the biggest tool I use on all outlets, whether I'm talking to somebody face-to-face or whether it's online, is being aware of the emotions of my audience. And that is partly because I've spent my entire career trying to convince people to like insects and spiders, and they are not having it. Haha. So every day I have somebody say that the things that I really love are gross, they're icky, they need to die in a fire. And I need to deal with that before I can really give them any information.

Gwen: And for humans, we are all about the emotions. And there's a lot of research—. Partly because being emotional, and having emotions and feelings is what we are. We're social animals—it's very important for us to get along, and to be receptive and aware of what other people feel. But you can't fix somebody's feelings, they just have them. And you can't say, “You shouldn't be afraid,” or, “You shouldn't be angry.” That—and that is a life tip. That is not a sci-comm tip, that is a life tip. Don't do that to your partner, because it's not going to go well—you just can't tell people not to feel the way that they feel. And for people who have strong feelings, they are just as real as facts to them. So it's not that there's this hierarchy, right? “Facts are here, and feelings are down [here].” It's—. No, they're constantly balancing out. And finding a way to deal with the emotions, and to say, “You've got emotions. Okay, let's talk about that,” is not something that scientists are very comfortable with. It's not something I am super comfortable with, because I am a super awkward person. And so I had to really learn how to do that.

Matthew: I mean, that's the perfect segue into what we were hoping to talk with you about, which is social emotional learning, isn't it?

Gwen: Before we get there, can I tell you something different though?

Matthew: Oh, of course. Yes.

Gwen: So I was going to—. One of my favorite techniques that I use to deal with emotions—and I use this both in-person and online—is basically making sure people know—. Because again, this is a really contentious time. I mean, there's a lot going on in the world, and if we only talk to people that are exactly like us, that is very boring and not useful. And so what we have to do is—we all have things in common—we have to find those. And an easy way to do that is by letting someone know, “I see you have emotions. Let's talk about that,” because that shows them that you're listening to them. And so the technique I use is called “Feel, Felt, Found.” And it is basically a way of reflecting what someone tells you back in a way that emphasizes that you have similarities.

Gwen: And so a common thing I get is, I'm talking to somebody and they say, “I really want to put some habitat for native bees into my yard, but I don't want my yard to look trashy.” And I hear that a lot. And so that person has just given you a ton of information. They are saying their attitudes, right? “I want to help bees.” So they have a positive attitude. And they're saying where they would like to go with an action. So we're focusing on behavior—and I think a key thing is to focus on the behavior that you want someone to adopt and not worry about all of their beliefs and what facts they know and anything else. It's like, if you can get them to that behavior, that's what's important. And how they get there is their own path. Haha.

Gwen: And so the behavior—they're like, “I want to put in native plants,” right? “But,”—and here's what's holding them back. If there's a tension there—"But I'm worried about [if] my yard is going to look bad.” And so that gives you a place to start the conversation. And if you start by saying, “I totally get why you'd feel concerned about making these changes to your yard, because you do not want to get a citation from the city, and this also is something that affects the value of your house.” And so right there, I've said, “I heard what you say. It makes total sense to me.” Then I follow that up by saying, “I felt a little overwhelmed, too, when I first started getting into native plants. There are so many choices.” And so I'm also saying, “Hey, see, right? Got a connection. I get how you get that.” And then, “I found that there is a huge community and a huge amount of resources so that I didn't have to do this alone.” And, you know, “For example, my state soil and water office has an annual sale, so you don't have to drop a whole bunch of money on getting native plants, they're right here.” And so that gets them past that—. You know, they've got the great attitude, they've got intentions, now I can help them figure out, “Okay, let's see if we can give you some help getting you to the behavior that I really want you to adopt, which is changing your yard so it supports native bees.”

Gwen: And I don't need to tell them 10,000—I don't need to tell them how many kinds of bees there are, right? Because honestly, if they get into native plants and they start watching, they're going to get there on their own. They're going to say, “Wow, look at all these things! What are these animals?” They're going to get there on their own. But the important thing is they have the behavior that we really want them to adopt. And so I think we can get really hung up on facts, also—because I do love a fact, right? I love factoids, they're awesome—but as scientists, I think in some cases, we need to let go of the facts and really focus on how people feel, and what are their intentions? What do they want to do? And that's, again—it's hard because, you know, I know a ridiculous amount of stuff about bugs—so it's a change in how we look at things.

Matthew: Yeah, I totally get that. I know often here at Xerces, we have a whole bunch of amazing people on staff who know a ton of things, and when we're writing something or talking about something with like—we do try and get so much information in. And it's hard to talk in general relatives because you say, “Well, they do this, but they don't, because there's three that do that, and two that do something different,” you know? And it's like, it's so easy to drop in more little factoids than you really need to get the person—.

Gwen: Because they're really cool. Haha. I mean, yeah.

Matthew: Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, we’ve got a whole organization of nerds here—it’s awesome.

Gwen: Haha.

Matthew: But yeah, so social and emotional learning. I know you've been involved with co-authoring studies on this. Can you explain what it is and how you might use it?

Gwen: Sure. So social and emotional learning is—it's always happened in schools and families, because you start out with a kid, [and] that kid has to learn basically how to be a good person. And that process is something that we can facilitate. And so the difference is—I mean, that's always happened as long as there have been humans—the difference is now we have a name for it and there's a body of research that supports it. And so I mean, it's kind of a—you know, we want kids to have healthy relationships with their peers, to have empathy for their friends. We want them to be able to manage their behavior in school. And that's it, right? It's a lifelong process, too. So adults still go through this, and I think—ideally, anyway—I feel like I definitely have gotten better at managing relationships with people as I've gotten older. So that's something that we've always done, and we have data now that tell us social emotional learning can be managed in specific ways and it is hugely beneficial to students. And that's, I mean, that's kind of a “Duh.” Like, teaching students how to get along with each other is beneficial to the student. But now we have data to back that up.

Gwen: This kind of gets back to what I kind of mentioned earlier that learning and emotions are related. And if you have ever met a child, you will notice they have emotions! They have a lot of them. Sometimes they loudly have emotions. And so helping them learn to manage themselves, and to understand why they feel the way they do is something that is just really basic and is part of growing up.

Gwen: So one of the ways that we can do this when we're working with kids is—instead of just expecting them to know how to behave when they're little kids, right?—we can give them models for how they should react. So when I go into a school room, I always bring live animals with me. Kids love live animals. And the nice thing is I can never bring a giraffe into a classroom, but I can totally bring insects, millipedes, tarantulas, whatever. But before I do anything, I will say to the kids, “Okay, I have live bugs and a tarantula with me,” and that right then, they're like, “Uhhhh.” And I'm like, “So here's what we're going to do. If you don't want to have anything to do with these animals, that is fine. That's totally okay, you do not have to do anything you don't want to do. But what I want you to do is, if you don't want to interact with the animals, I want you to cross your arms like this and say, ‘No, thank you.’” So I have given them a specific way to respond. And I'll also say, “And what I don't want you to do is go, ‘Blahlalalala,’” you know, and so then I make them laugh, right? And so then I'll reiterate, “Okay, so, if you don't want to touch anything, you don't want to participate, that is fine. That's your choice. Cross your arms, say ‘No, thank you.’” So I have modeled for them what I want them to do and it works great.

Gwen: The other thing is that lets them choose for themselves. And who doesn't want to have choice over what goes on in their life? Man, we could all use more of that—and they also get to choose how comfortable they are. And that has been super useful. And then they also—I've given them the model for how to do it—then they practice it, right? And so ideally, in the next situation where they don't want to participate, they will say, “No, thank you,” as opposed to, “Blahlala.” Haha. And so that right there is kind of social emotional learning in a nutshell. And it's showing kids, you know, this is a way you can do it.

Gwen: The other thing that will happen is a lot of times kids don't want to do something because they need time to think it over. And so I give them that space and that time to think it over. Plus, they're also going to see all their friends having a great time. And so then eventually what you'll see is they will, you know, they'll be on the edge and they will slowly come right back in. But if I hadn't given that space, and time, and permission, they would have stayed way in the back of the room and been upside the whole time. And so a lot of it is just thinking about ways that we can teach kids to manage themselves. You know, “Here's what you do.”

Matthew: Yeah. Are there ways to adapt that to grown-ups?

Gwen: It works great on grown-ups, actually. Haha. I honestly say, I really don't change much. The only difference is the language that I use. I can be a little more specific about what parts we're talking about when I'm talking to adults. But that's it. Because no matter what age we are, we have emotions and sometimes those emotions are too much. Or we have feelings and we need time to figure out our feelings. And that doesn't really change, we just get better at it as we get older. And I mean, there are a lot of parents who are not, absolutely not interested in having a bug anywhere near them and that is fine. And by telling them that it's okay, I mean, that gives them the space to go, “Is it though? Maybe I should try this. Looks kind of fun.” Haha.

Matthew: On many occasions, I've seen families come up and the kids are like, “Wow, cool.” And they go in, and the parents like step back and you can see them—that physical recoil. And sometimes they like, they hoick their kid out. And that’s when I’m like, “Oh, really?” So that's normally what, you know.

Gwen: Everybody needs to make their own choices. And you’ll just—. And what I usually say is, “If you feel like you want to come back later—your kid’s really interested, I would love to talk to them.”

Matthew: Yeah.

Gwen: And so just leaving the door open.

Matthew: Mhmm.

Gwen: I mean, the other thing is—I mean, like telling somebody not to have an emotion—you cannot tell someone how to raise their children. That is not going to go well. Haha. And so all you can do is just say, “Okay, I totally get it. If you want to come back, I would love to chat with you.” And that positivity is another big thing. When we're talking to people, it's really important to have some sort of positive spin. Because otherwise it's all doom and gloom, and nobody wants to hear that. And so the thing I say a lot when I'm doing Xerces presentations is, “Yeah, there's a real problem. This is a real issue. But these are little animals. They're tiny animals. We don't need 10,000 acres to fix this, right? If all of us come together and make little changes, we can fix this.” And that is something that really resonates with people. Like, “This is a thing I can do.” And again, it gets back to how much—how little control we have over a lot of our lives. And so giving someone something—"I can do this and it will make a change”—that's a big thing. And that's something people really want.

Matthew: Yeah. No, and definitely working with insects—and, I mean, with pollinators in particular for the last couple of decades or so—it's been very rewarding to see how people can get directly involved with the conservation work, rather than being like, “Oh, I'm going to save a wolf, and an eagle.” Which obviously we need—I'm not saying we shouldn't be doing that—.

Gwen: Yep. It’s a lot harder.

Matthew: —but it all kind of happens in some distant wilderness, you know. And yeah, you might have a tree that you might get an eagle in your yard if you have a river frontage, but for the typical person that's not going to happen. But with pollinators and insects, you can do something in a very small space and see the real direct benefit from it, and then sit there and go, “Yeah, I did that.”

Gwen: I think that's why a lot of the recent research that's been coming out of Europe about how, even in cities, we can make these changes and it will have a really positive effect has been so widely—like that's a message that resonates with people. And I think that's why that news story has really done well in terms of people being interested in it and wanting to know more.

Rachel: So going back to the social and emotional learning study you did, I just think it's really great that you have actual data to back up how effective it is. Can you just give us a brief summary of the study and what you found? Because I think it's important for listeners to hear this.

Gwen: Sure. So the title of the study is “Making Space for Social and Emotional Learning in Science Education.” And this kind of comes out of—a lot of times we teach things very separately. So math is over here, English is over here, science is here. We even compartmentalize science. So like physics is here, and biology is here, chemistry is here. And that is not how we experience the world. Everything is in little compartments. It doesn’t—it's all together. And we also tend to treat science as a thing that like Vulcans do. Haha. Like, you're supposed to be impartial, and it's just the facts, and that is not how humans do science. Science is done by humans; therefore, it has everything about us in it. It has emotions, it has biases, it has everything. And so we know that feelings are important to learning. So what if we take feelings and put them with science, instead of trying to pretend that they aren't there. I mean, I'll tell you right now, any kid who has taken a final exam has had some feelings. Haha. And so can we put these together?

Gwen: And the other piece of this is if I go into a high school classroom and I ask teenagers, “Hey, we're all going to sit down and talk about how you feel.” That is not happening. I mean, that—if I had been—when I was a teenager, that would have been mortifying. I would never have done it. But we do want teenagers to learn how to manage their emotions. And honestly, I mean, they're—. Poor things. You could not pay me enough to go back to high school again. Ever. Haha. It's a lot! And so getting them to have that conversation is really difficult. But if I walk into a room holding a tarantula, everybody has a feeling. Haha. Sometimes that feeling is awesome, sometimes that feeling is, “Ahhh!” But they have a feeling. So that is something we can talk about. And so our question was: can we take feelings people have about these animals, and work from that to how do you feel about people who think differently than you, or who look differently than you? Can we connect these two things together?

Gwen: And so we used arthropods—and so in this one, this was millipedes, a tarantula, various insect. Those are the “other,” right?—and can we use them to first get students to think about why—"Why am I afraid of this bug?” right? And to think about that a little bit. And so that's where this starts, that's like the first piece of this—and that—interacting with live animals and then learning more about those animals. The second one is a facilitator discussion about, you know, why do we feel the way we feel? And then making that jump to, “Have you ever had somebody be afraid of you, for no reason?” right? Or, “Has somebody believed something about you that wasn't true?” Which in high school is absolutely a, “Yes.”

Gwen: And then the next piece of this was what they called in DIFFERENT—it was an action technology project. And so what that means is students worked in groups to make some sort of creative project where they did something that would benefit their school or their community that was focused on empathy, and tolerance, or gratitude.

Gwen: And then the last piece of this was a student assessment. And we used a format that is—actually really, I really like it a lot—and it's a format that also works really well with students. And so it asks them, “I used to think this about spiders. Now, I think that.” And it's fill in the blank. And so it gives you a great pre-post right there. And so we could do a couple different things. We could do a sentiment analysis of what people wrote—it was very clear they felt a lot better about bugs after they had had this intervention, which is great. But, it also was very clear on one of the questions we asked was, “I used to feel that people who think differently than me are ‘fill in the blank.’ Now I feel that people who think differently from me are ‘Blah.” And again, this was in 2019, 2020, so there was a lot going on there.

Gwen: And it was really clear that students shifted to being a little more flexible. Like, “People who don't agree with me, don't agree with me. It's fine.” And one of the other big initiatives in K-12 during this time has also been next generation science standards, and one of the things they really emphasize is having students discuss their results and come to a consensus on what they think the results mean. And so what this means is we can take that disgust or fear of insects and see it as a pathway to learn how to talk about things we don't like. To learn how to change that into a way to discuss with others productively. Like, “I don't like this thing, you like this thing.” Instead of, you know, “You're wrong,” it's like, “How can you like it? Well, let's talk about that,” right? And so that is back to what we were just talking about, right? You model the skill, they practice the skill, ideally, they keep that skill for the next situation. So that is social emotional learning.

Rachel: I like that it gets down to the “Why?” of things. Because ultimately, we all have a why—why we do things, why we behave a certain way, why we make our certain choices. And I think whether you're at a table or giving a presentation, what you really want to learn from your audience or from your students is: why are they reacting this way? Like you said, why don't they like tarantulas? And I think just addressing the emotions behind it, and then getting them to kind of do this self-discovery of like, “Oh.” Haha. It's a nice place to start from, because then you can relate to them—like you had talked about in your earlier story of like, “Oh, I totally understand why you don't want your yard to be messy,” and you understand why they don't want that—it's such a better foundation to start from when having a conversation with somebody, especially about something that might be conflicting, or that you disagree with. So, yeah, that’s—. It was a very interesting study—I did read it. Our team actually read it as an exercise, and I really enjoyed it, and I'm grateful that people are doing this work because I think it is really important. And I think that skill set can translate into so many other areas of our lives.

Matthew: Yeah, thinking about that translation—how can it be adopted? I mean, can teachers, parents, informal educators, like ourselves, the public—can they utilize this and other tools?

Gwen: First of all, the curriculum itself was developed by the Bug Chicks—it's called DIFFERENT. And so that—parts of that are available. It is being used right now, as far as I know, at several different school districts. There is a great resource: casel.org—that is CASEL—it's basically all about social emotional learning. The other thing I think that is super useful is understanding the age of your child. So children have different developmental stages. And obviously, no kids are going to be the same—they're all going to hit those stages at different times. But having an idea of—you know, for kindergartners, they're working on this particular social skill right now, and they're trying, you know—. And so you've probably all seen kids that went through the “Mine” stage. “Mine, mine, mine.” And so when they hit that varies, but ideally, we would like them to let go of that. Haha. And so understanding that this particular concept—not everything is yours—is developmentally likely in this stage of the kid's life is super useful, because then that lets you think about, “How can I work with them to help them understand sharing is good?” And so understanding where kids are and what their struggles are—. You know, in middle school, the struggle becomes getting along with their peers because, they're so much more sensitive to what their peers are doing. And so trying to think about, “How can I model what I want to see?” is super important. And there are lots of examples of that online, and great resources.

Matthew: Yeah, no, that’s great. I was thinking when you said that districts are already adopting this, it must be so satisfying for that research to have become practical and already—.

Gwen: I mean, the people who built this are the Bug Chicks, and they had a vision and they wanted it to happen. And so I, and our other co-author, Erin, mostly just helped with technical stuff. The thing was built and developed by Kristie and Jess, and it's just amazing. And I think that's—. Part of it is, you know, we—all of us work with kids and bugs, and so over time, you see the same things come up over and over and you figure out, “Okay, this is a way I can work with that.”

Matthew: Gwen, thank you so much for this conversation. We're coming up towards the end now and we have two questions that we like to ask all of our guests. The first one kind of links back—you said, you know, the wonder of being outside—so: if you could see any bug—and by bug, I mean invertebrate of any sort—and in the wild—as in not in captivity—what would it be?

Gwen: I want to go to New Zealand and see a wētā, which are these massive—they're kind of giant katydid-y things. And while I'm there, I would also like to go see the Waitomo glowworm caves, which are amazing. They're so cool. And so these bioluminescent fungus gnats don’t sound very exciting, but it's really cool.

Matthew: I've only seen film footage of those the bioluminescent caves and they look pretty spectacular.

Gwen: It's a great—. I mean, there's so many different ways to glow in insects and other invertebrates. It's amazing how many different ways there are. So the—my understanding is that the fungus gnat larvae, it's their Malpighian tubules are where the bioluminescence is, which is like having a glowing kidney—it's amazing.

Matthew: I'm going to let our guests Google “Malpighian tubules.” We weren’t trying to explain what they are. Haha.

Gwen: Haha. Yeah, that’s—you know, ehh. Haha.

Rachel: Oh, I feel really—. I actually was able to see—.

Gwen: Ooo.

Rachel: —glowworms in New Zealand last year, and it like blew my mind. It was very, very cool. And the giant crickets in the cave, as well, that scared everybody. Haha. Which kind of made me laugh, but I was trying to like comfort people. There was actually one of the Māori people—we were able to go on a tour with him, and he was telling us that he would take school kids in there and he would tell them, “If you ever get scared, and you see a big insect, just start humming.” And he noticed the further in the cave they went and the more insects they saw, they would hum louder and louder. So by the end, there was just, “Humm,” of all these kids humming. But it gave them some way to channel that fear rather than—don't yell, don't scream, don't run, but just hum.

Gwen: Yeah.

Rachel: But I loved that story. It's the perfect example of what you were just talking about. Haha. But yeah, you got to get to New Zealand, it's a magical, magical place. I'll give you tips and pointers on where to go. So the last question here—which is our most longstanding question that we love to ask people—is: what inspired you to become an entomologist? And what kind of led you into this career of science communication and education?

Gwen: I started out in animal behavior. And when I started college, I really wanted to work on birds, and then I realized that birds are most active at about five in the morning, and that was not what I wanted as an undergraduate. That was not for me. On the other hand, insects—because they are very thermally driven—they don't really get going until about nine or 10 o'clock. And then, you know, once the sun goes down, it's over. So that fit a lot better into my undergraduate schedule. And then once I started working on insects, I just never looked back. So I was like, “This is awesome. They're so cool.” And I—my research initially was focused on ways to do biological control, because I didn't feel like it was like right to tell a grower, “Don't spray pesticides,” and then not offer any alternatives. So that I really loved. And then while I was in graduate school, I started going to schools and that just got me hooked. Like there's just nothing better than letting a kid pet a caterpillar and seeing their face just light up. They’re like, “Whoa, this is amazing!” And that one also just, yeah, it's so much fun. And it's just such a great way—. Again, it activates the emotions, right? You learn better when you're having fun. You learn better when you're really curious. So that was awesome.

Rachel: I love that. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, and sharing your experience. And it's been really refreshing to kind of take a moment to step back and think about how we can share this information with other people, and such great tools to do that with. So we're very happy to have you here. I'm so glad that we have you as an outreach volunteer out there, inspiring people—kids and adults alike. So thank you for taking the time to be with us—we appreciate it.

Gwen: Thanks.

Rachel: Bug Banter is brought to you by the Xerces Society, a donor-based nonprofit that is working to protect insects and other invertebrates—the life that sustains us.

Rachel: If you’re already a donor, thank you so much. If you want to support our work go to xerces.org/donate. For information about this podcast and for show notes go to xerces.org/bugbanter.