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Victoria Zablocki: Teaching science in elementary school is crucial for nurturing young minds, but as educators, finding the time and resources to create engaging lessons can be a challenge. That's where this podcast comes in. Welcome to Naturally Teaching Elementary Science, the show dedicated to supporting elementary teachers in their quest to bring authentic and place based science experiences to their classroom.

I'm Victoria Zablocki, a certified elementary teacher turned outdoor educator. With over a decade of experience coaching teachers on effective science teaching methods, I'm passionate about making science accessible, understandable, and fun for educators and students alike. Join me as we explore strategies for teaching science in elementary school with practical teaching tips, insightful interviews, picture book reviews and more. Whether you've taught for a long time or just started your teaching journey, this podcast is your trusty resource for enhancing your science curriculum. So let's grow together.

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Naturally Teaching Elementary Science podcast. I am super stoked to have Dr. Rachel Larimore on as a guest today. And in full disclosure. I blame her for my entrance into the world of nature based learning. When I started at the Nature Center, I had no idea that between her and Nature Day Camp, I would be entering the world of nature based education.

I thought I was going to be a teacher in the classroom. But then she showed me how field trips integrated into nature could really make a difference with children. And then I got the opportunity to be an educator that went into a nature based classroom in a local school district. And that changed my whole life.

So thanks to her, I am now in the position where I've been working as an outdoor educator for over a decade, working with teachers on how to integrate nature into their science education. So I knew I had to have Dr. Rachel Larimore on because she has done so much work in this space and is a pioneer for nature based education.

To brag on her some more, Dr. Rachel A. Larimore is an educator, consultant, and former nature based preschool director. Her work focuses on the intentional integration of nature to support young children's holistic development by learning with nature to expand their worlds and live rich, full lives. She's written multiple books, including Establishing a Nature Based Preschool , Preschool Beyond Walls, Blending Early Childhood Education and Nature Based Learning , and Evaluating Natureness : Measuring the Quality of Nature Based Classrooms in pre K through 3rd grade.

Rachel is the founder and chief visionary of Samara Early Learning, an organization focused on helping early childhood educators start nature based schools or add nature based approaches into their existing program. Prior to founding Samara, she spent more than a decade starting and directing one of the first nature based preschools in the United States.

So without further ado, here's Dr. Rachel A. Larimore. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the Naturally Teaching Elementary Science podcast. I am super lucky to have Dr. Rachel Larimore on the show today, and I'm not going to talk too much. I'm just going to let her tell you about her journey. What she's doing.

She's doing amazing things. I'm going to let her take it away. Rachel, go for it.

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Dr. Rachel Larimore: Yeah. Thanks. Good to be here. It's wild to see, uh, where we've both gone from when we first met, which was, I don't even know how many years ago now, 15 more than that. I don't know. We won't do the math. It's been a while. That's the thing.

Yeah. I've been in the field a while and it's funny how time just flies by. I t still feel s like yesterday, right, that I was a little kid playing in the woods in central Illinois on my family's vegetable farm. But I'm not anymore. That time has changed a little bit. So I've now been in some version of early childhood environmental education for, getting close to 30 years.

I've been saying 25 plus. Pretty soon I'm gonna have to say 30 plus, but I think I have a year to go or something like that. It's amazing how the field has changed so much in that time. But anyway, so when I first started, I was in more traditional environmental education, really came from the environmental education route.

So, you know, I was thinking about nature center work and more environmental interpretation. I wasn't thinking a lot about formal education at that point. My first full time job was at the Kalamazoo Nature Center, where I was the after school coordinator, and we were working in more non formal settings, and they had, actually in Kalamazoo at that time, had the 21st Century Learning Grant, which was the after school program, and just lots of after school programming through the schools and community centers and things, so we were doing environmental education as part of this non formal ed, and then from there, I moved to North a little bit in Michigan to Midland.

It's a podcast, so it doesn't do any good to show you my hand, but please trust listeners that I have the map of Michigan out to show you that I live in the middle of the state. So I moved to the Chippewa Nature Center where first I was the school program coordinator. And really that position was about what you're talking about, right?

Like this blending of nature and formal education and How do we achieve these very academic goals by using nature as a tool, right? So school program coordinator, and then that led to day camp and all youth things. And then eventually in 2007, we started a nature based preschool to really dive into formal education, but for those younger kids, mostly three, four or five year olds.

And then that led to a partnership with the local schools for a kindergarten program, which is, I think, the initial way, right, you came in to the mix was when we started that program. But it was how do we support public schools and schools in general, but in particular was our local public school district and using nature as another tool.

And now I really talk about nature as another teacher in the classroom, right? That there is so much work. It is so hard to be a teacher. There's so much to constantly be thinking about and planning can take so much time. And what is amazing about nature is there is endless opportunity for all sorts of learning at any given moment, and even if we haven't planned anything, if we just walk outside, there will be some lesson there.

We don't know what it will be, right? It may be different from, from month to month, and in fact, it will be different because of course the seasons change, but it's just rich with all sorts of learning. So the part of the shift that happened for me and more integration with formal education, you know, I came from non formal kind of thinking about how do we bring this into formal education. And all of that was about building longer term relationship with the outdoors. So, you know, when I first was working with schools, it was a half hour, hour, maybe if we were lucky, it was a half day field trip, right? But they weren't there long enough, in my mind, to really build a relationship with the outdoors.

And I think that's what's so wonderful about the work you're doing on this podcast, right, is really thinking about how do we bring nature in on a more regular basis as part of our everyday learning, so that not only, you know, is it real, tangible learning, but it's this ongoing relationship that builds over time and isn't just a extra like, "Oh, nature just happens every once in a while. It's a lot of fun. We do that, that one Friday of the month or whatever." But it's built in all the time. So it's an ongoing true relationship over time. And that was really the force behind the preschool is, oh , as a nature center, if we invest our time in these children that are outside literally every day in all weather, unless it was dangerous, which I mean, I can count probably on one hand, the days where we did not go outside at least part of that class day, right?

Where there were severe thunderstorms, but even in extreme temperatures, like you're still out for a little bit. It might've been 10 minutes, but it was, we were outside and those days were very rare, really. So that was really what drove all this. I'm kind of blending my bio into where, into the theory, right?

Cause mostly, cause I don't really like to talk about myself, but, but that's how I ended up really diving into nature based early childhood work. And eventually left the Nature Center to finish my PhD in curriculum instruction and teacher ed, but really nature based education. But along that route, I was also in my role at the Nature Center and, and environmental ed work.

But even during my doctoral work, really thinking about also science education and how do we shift from, from knowing about science or learning about science, learning the facts to figuring out science and helping children to explore with the doing of science and science practices. So that. also led to a project.

So now I'm an independent consultant supporting educators, right? There's all, all these things tie together. So mostly in nature based early childhood work, but I also am part of a project based out of Maine where we are looking at children's play, preschool and kindergartners play, and what's happening related to science and engineering practices that they're naturally doing in their play.

Because It drives me crazy, but young children so often when it comes to science are sort of thought of as like, well, they're not doing real science. They're not really doing science. And it just sort of gets poo pooed. And yet, if we really pay attention, children are doing some really sophisticated science, struggling and, and talking about really sophisticated ideas.

Uh, or wrestling with those ideas, right? And sometimes we just, we don't listen enough or pay attention enough to notice like, Oh, yeah, they really are doing some incredible things. I think maybe Victoria, you've heard this story from me, but I'll tell it again. The child and I were walking through the woods, it was a preschool group, so there were four, maybe, maybe this child was getting close to five.

We were walking through the woods on a fall day, and there were all these leaves down, right? And so there were, there was a tree in front of us that didn't have any leaves. And I think he said, or another child said, That tree's dead. And he's like, "well, sort of", and then he said, "but you see that tree over there" and he pointed to a conifer and he's like, "see, like that one's still alive."

He's like, "and this one, it'll come back in the spring." He's like, "so, well, you know, it's not really dead." Like I could tell he was struggling. Like he didn't really, he wasn't confident that was the right answer that he wanted to say. It wasn't even the answer he wanted to say, right? And he was like, "well, you know how, like some animals come out at night and some are in the day." I'm like, "yeah." And he's like, "well, and like sometimes flowers, like they open during the day, but then they close at night." He's like, "it's kind of like this, like, that's kind of what this tree is. Like, it'll come back in the spring." So here is this child that is essentially this four year old telling me that this tree is dormant for the winter and it will, right, it's not dead, but he just didn't have the language, but if I listen long enough, I just gave him time, I just, I just listened and let him kind of try to explain to me because he has a four year old bank of vocabulary words, right?

It wasn't that he doesn't understand the ideas, he just didn't have the words to describe to me , it's dormant because he hadn't heard that word yet, you know. And so I think we did actually, that was the next thing, is we talked about that word. Like, oh, super helpful. And that's one of the things I'm sure you've talked about, and will talk about, is like how we use language and when we use it, right?

Because I didn't start out telling him. This is what is happening, and this is why that tree doesn't have leaves. He was explaining it to me. He was wrestling through this concept. He was trying to compare, what does it remind me of, right? What is similar or different to this idea? How can I explain it to you?

He was creating this explanation, which is a practice. He was generating this explanation of how it works. I mean, communicating the information to me. So, rather than me saying, this is this word, and this is what it means. Because that's when a child looks at you and is like, why are you always talking?

Right? Like, please be quiet. I'm not interested. But when it's from them, of course they're interested. That's what they're curious about. That for me was like that longer term relationship and that deep science that happens in nature. I just, I think that's one of those examples of like, it looks like a walk in the woods, but some really deep science learning.

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Victoria Zablocki: For sure. I think that' s actually a good place for us to start talking about your newest book. The explanation that you gave about letting him talk and letting him work through it himself, a lot of times teachers just want to jump right in there and give away all the answers because it's time to move on to this next thing.

But by going slower, giving them the opportunity to think through it themselves, he's going to remember that information so much more deeply and intrinsically than if we just give him the answers. So a program really is only as good as its implementers. So in your newest book called Reimagining the Role of Teachers in Nature Based Learning, you interpret the research behind the different roles of teachers in nature based preschools and elementary schools.

So kind of along those lines that you were just describing, can you give us a breakdown of how teachers and their various roles fit into the success of nature based learning? And I know, I know you could probably talk about that for days, but can you give us a breakdown from your book, or even just from your own experience, knowledge bank of the different roles and how those actually enhance and enrich the experience for nature based learning.

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Dr. Rachel Larimore: Absolutely. I love that. I love the way you said that. Like this, this is the question audience of Victoria who knows me well, and that knows I will just get on a tirade and ramble about this for days.

And that is not the request. Um, so I think the, the more I'm in this work, and the more I research, right, the way we teach and the way children learn, and I hate to say this, but I keep coming back to what matters most is what we as the adults bring to the table. And our influence is so impactful, both positive and negative, right?

And that we have to be really aware of our own language and actions and the impact that that has. As much as it's like, no, this is straightforward. And, but I mean, even our mood, right? Even the mood that we're in that day or the triggers that we have. I mean, we're talking about nature and science, right?

If, if you're not a fan of snakes and all of a sudden a snake goes by and you freak out, that has an impact on those children and their thoughts now and feelings about this. So the new book. It's really about the human element, right? It, we are humans teaching humans and we have to remember that we truly bring all of the things that come with being a human, which is like strengths and weaknesses, right?

Like we have our human frailties and the more we can look at the influence we have, the better. So. In nature based education, I generally think about, especially as we're setting up sort of a holistic approach to integrating nature in the classroom, I think about three spaces. The indoor space, the outside space, and then the space beyond the fence, which is the beyond, right?

So inside, outside, beyond. Generally, I think of those as three spaces. But more and more, I've been talking about those as metaphors for social emotional relationships. Connection to the world and connection and relationship to the world and that's really the foundation and framework for this new book that I wrote with Dr. Claire Warden out of Scotland, who also, by the way, is the one who coined the term beyond beyond the fence. And so we framed all of this as what is that inside work? So the thoughts we tell ourselves, right, our own self esteem and interest, just how we view ourselves, how and how we view ourselves in the world and community, and then the outside in how we relate to one another, how we relate to other people and the natural world.

And then in the beyond is how do I relate to the broader world, whether that's sort of the unseen, you know, something bigger than ourselves, also our profession, if you're a teacher, you know, how do we relate to this broader, broader world outside of our communities? So that's how it's framed. Within the book, each chapter is sort of a different role that we bring to teaching.

So for example, we are holders of memories. Right, so rather than, oh, we have to document today, right, we must document the learning, which yes, we do, but like, what is that about? What's the bigger purpose of that? I mean, some of it is, us holding memories of the progress this individual child has made, but some of it is also holding memories for that individual and for the group of, "remember that time we saw that really cool insect that was crawling and we all gathered around and we took notes and we took pictures and we were so excited, right?"

It's these shared experiences. So sometimes it's that, sometimes it's provider of space, provider of time, provider of materials. We also talk about silence, right? And so that's part of how do we support and our role as a conversationalist. So sometimes being a good conversationalist is actually just being quiet, right?

And especially when it comes to nature and science, like to have a pause, to just notice, to just feel in our body that, "Whoa, wow, that's so cool." And then we can talk about it. And that's the thing for me with wonder and awe, there's a book called Awe, but talks about sort of these different ways that awe shows up in our life.

And, and one of those kind of the idea that's in there is awe is one of those things that the moment you try to describe it, you can't do it justice. Right? You just, you just can't. And so, to take a pause and just observe and go, "Wow, that's incredible." Right? And then try to describe it. Rather than immediately going in as a teacher, right?

We, we put our teacher hat on, they need to notice the facts about this. They need to notice that there are six legs on this insect. By golly, you know, as opposed to just, wow, it's so cool. All those colors and that shape and that, like it's moving weird. And, but we don't have to talk about that yet. We can just notice it and then come back.

So everything we do has an impact. And I don't say that to freak everyone out because it is easy to go, Oh gosh, well forget it. I'm just going to do something else because I'm sure to say something wrong or do the wrong thing. And that's the art of teaching. That's why it isn't, well, why I don't think it should be this is what you say first and this is what you say second, which is so much of the sort of scripted curriculum, right? Instead, it is this art. It's a relationship. Teaching is the relationship between us and our children and the natural world. And that is this constant give and take and noticing our own thinking and feelings in a moment.

And then how are we responding to the children, right? How are we triggered? A children start like, for me, if a child starts whining, like I immediately am like, "Oh, right." It just kind of, it, it makes me crazy. And so I have to pause and notice, "okay, I'm the adult. I have to go from my hind brain back to my prefrontal cortex. And think about what's really happening here. What does this child need? What's my next step?" As opposed to just being annoyed, right? And also recognizing that I'm human and there may be days where, oh, I didn't handle that the way I wanted to exactly. So, so that's the essence of the new book, is there's these different roles, um, I mentioned a lot of them, and then we also have a chapter sort of reflecting on our own characteristics that we bring to the work, and especially that inner work, right?

Thinking about, um, what is my relationship to the natural world? What is my growth mindset? Like, do I have a growth mindset or am I a little more fixed and that what I know is what I know?

[00:21:46]

Victoria Zablocki: I noticed that the description includes that you have specific language or behaviors for each role. And I know that my own experience, my teaching was actually developed quite a bit by watching The Nature Preschool Teachers, and so this book sounds like it gives the gift of examples for those teachers that may be new to this sort of learning or style of teaching.

Is there anything you want to add about, like, the structure of the chapters that relate to the different roles that you explain?

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Dr. Rachel Larimore: Yeah, I mean, that's that's a lot of the way we structured each of these is sort of the theory behind it. Why are we even having this conversation about, you know, providing time?

Like, why does that matter? What are the benefits to kids, right? And where does that show up in the class day? And then the last section we have, yeah, essentially, what does this look like or sound like? Some things you'll be able to see, like provider of space or materials, but a lot of it is about interactions, teacher child interactions as they happen.

By the way, you'll notice, for those of you listening, that I'm using child because that's very much, I'm an early childhood person, right? And I tend to use child instead of student. The interesting things that happen in our, in the field of education that you can start to see patterns of people's background.

But the teacher child interactions, are most of them, right? Most of these sort of characteristics. And at the end of each of the chapter is what does it sound like? And so not only what does it sound like for the teacher to say it, to just in general to say it, but also what does it sound like for the teacher In interactions with other teachers or in interaction specifically with children or in planning, right?

So sometimes it's also just our thinking like how am I thinking about this? So there's examples of each of that at the end of each chapter as well. The other thing that I haven't really talked about is the other frame of all of this is sort of driving this. This entire book is supporting the idea of children being confident, curious, and caring, and not just about facts and information like science, right?

And confident in their learning, caring about learning, and that kind of thing, but also for each other, for themselves, and for the natural world. And so we talk about with each of these characteristics, also, like, how does, you being a conversationalist as a teacher support children in caring for themselves, for nature, for other people.

How does it support them in being confident? How does it support them in being curious? And so there's also examples throughout in the text, but also in those examples. You know, what does that sound like given those different goals?

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Victoria Zablocki: That's great. I think a lot of times with, especially nature based learning, there's a lot of literature out there for the theory behind it, like why it's so amazing and so awesome.

And you and I have seen it in practice. So we've seen it all happen. But a lot of people, they don't have the tools to be able to do it on their own. So the fact that you are providing examples is a wonderful piece of your book. And going back to that, we know how it looks and we know how amazing it is and all the theory behind how wonderful it is.

You and I talked about it the other day. There's not a whole lot of research going on talking about how wonderful nature based preschool and elementary is other than anecdotal. So it's on the trend. People are seeing how great it is, but there's not a whole lot with evaluation of the quality of their own programs and their own schools and things.

The good news for everybody is that you and your team have been working on ways to help evaluate success, right? So, can you give us a breakdown of the Nature Based Education Rating Scales that you featured in your book, Evaluating Nature ness, Measuring the Quality of Nature Based Classrooms in Pre K through 3rd grade?

[00:25:41]

Dr. Rachel Larimore: Sure. It's really kind of me to give you really long titles, isn't it? We could shorten up our titles a little bit. Yes, so what happened, so NaBERS is how we shortened the scale, um, to Nature Based Education Rating Scale. The way that came about was actually we were doing research on the benefits for children's development, so looking really at child outcomes, and nature based preschool and elementary schools compared to more traditional non nature based schools, if you will say.

So we started that process and went, "Ooh, how do we define what's nature based and what's not right?" And I mean your whole podcast is about how to do more of the nature, right? So, uh, okay, at what point is enough to be called now nature based versus not? I want to be clear that the that matters for research in defining, are you nature based or not?

In terms of day to day interactions and day to day practice, it is a continuum, and whatever you can do is great, right? And every little bit you can do more of is even better. And I don't want anyone to feel like, "oh, I'm not doing enough, like I wouldn't be labeled as nature based, right?" And we have this tool that does, unfortunately, in a way, give you a number at the end. Like, oh, I'm a seven. And the goal is not the number. Who cares, right? Like, ultimately, who cares? What the purpose of this tool was to look at how are schools, individual classrooms, really, because this is measured at the classroom level, how are they bringing nature into their classroom?

Goals and curriculum practices. How are they bringing nature into their staffing, qualifications and training of their staff? How are they bringing nature into the environment? I talked about those three spaces, right? Like is nature indoors? Do we have informational texts that represent. real nature, local nature, back to the real, that isn't stereotypes, right?

Or sort of going into that, but that it's local to us and not just the rainforest somewhere else. If you live in a rainforest all by all means, yes. Talk about the rainforest. If you don't live in the rainforest, maybe talk about the rainforest, but in relation to your actual forest, right? Where you do live.

So talking about nature indoors, nature in the outdoor play area, if that exists, right? If you have an outdoor play area, how natural is it? What is the beyond like? So those are really looking at what are the natural ecosystems there? Are they able to go to lots of different ecosystems or is it just one?

Now again, one is better than none, right? So this is the challenge with developing a tool like this is my fear is someone will use it for evil and I don't want it to be used for evil. Please don't, right? It is intended to be a way to continue to grow, to recognize, "oh, you're right. We only ever go to the forest right outside our classroom. We've never gone to a pond or a river or a creek or some, you know, aquatic system or you're right We've never gone to the prairie in more open space, right?" Like just to bring awareness to it.

So that's the third section is environment Then we have an entire section on community partnerships and resources which really is the work that we did together way back when right? When the nature center was the community partner working with the schools and so there's questions in there about is there a relationship with a nature educator that comes in on a regular basis and is it the same educator that comes every week?

That's better than having a different educator. Right, or and the same educator, but maybe only ever comes once a month or once a year. So the tool looks at some of those relationships opportunities for other on site resources. Like, do you have a sugaring house to make maple syrup on your school property?

Great. You have a greenhouse that you can visit, right? Like those things sort of increase the, the nature ness, if you will. Kind of, I describe it simply as the, how nature y, or the nature ness of a program. And then also, as far as community partnerships, opportunities for field trips. Like, are we going on a regular basis for field trips?

So, like, we had a partnership when I was at the Nature Center where the younger grades, kindergarten, first, second grade, had a regular relationship with an educator that came in from the Nature Center, you know, once a week, part of planning, very regular. The fifth graders didn't have quite as regular. I mean, it was once a month, I think.

And then at the springtime, there was a five day intensive for that whole week they were on the Nature Center property and exploring. And so that's a different setup. But that's still showing like, oh, there's some real intention here in integrating nature. So this tool kind of looks at those elements. So for that section on community partnership, the fifth grade would score differently, right, than the kindergarten did.

Then the last section is on family engagement and how is the classroom and the teacher and the school engaging with the family specific to nature. So the way this whole thing is structured is It looks a lot like other program assessments you may have seen, like ECERS, the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale.

So it, it follows that format, but it is really specific to the nature aspects. This isn't just a measure of high quality early childhood, but specifically how are we being intentional about bringing nature in to these different areas. And this is pretty high level, right? You could have, in fact, there are tools that look just at the natural play area.

And this was sort of a broad as a whole, how is nature coming into the, to the classroom? I don't say all of that as a pitch for the book, although I appreciate you asking me about it, but I do say it as a way to remember that there are so many different ways to integrate nature into your classroom that does support science, right, as well as all of the other learning domains.

I mean, I know the focus here is science and you've, I know have said this multiple times, like it also supports literacy development. It also supports math. It supports art, right? All of those different areas by having the experiences outside. So this is really just a tool to see opportunities for more nature integration and also opportunities for growth as well as celebrating successes of what we're already doing.

I hope it's useful if people check it out.

[00:32:36]

Victoria Zablocki: Yeah, I was going to say, that actually seems like a good starting point, so if you don't really know where to go with anything, you could look at this as a tool to be able to, "okay, if I can only start with going outside once a week, that's fine, what can I achieve from that, looking at this tool, and then, okay, where are some other areas I can add it in, oh, I could go on a field trip."

So it, it's not just a tool for evaluation, it could also be a tool for growth, so that's fantastic. Well, we're actually winding down, so I'm going to let Rachel, I know you've got some things that you can offer people, and also where could people find you, because you are places, you're doing wonderful things, and I want people to be able to reach out to you if they're interested.

[00:33:15]

Dr. Rachel Larimore: Absolutely. It's so funny, I'm lots of places, but almost always I'm still at my house. I'm just out there digitally, right? I do travel a fair amount. Um, so I'm at different conferences and so forth, and you can find out all of that information on my website, which is SamaraEarlyLearning. com or very simply just SamaraEL. com. I have both domains, so you don't have to type it all out. You're welcome. But I think you'll probably link that, but also on the website in addition to where I'll be and a whole bunch of freebies, I do have a really fun quiz that you can take. It's SamaraEL. com quiz. And basically, it helps you to identify where are you on your nature based journey.

Are you just starting out? Are you kind of middle of the road? You've been doing this for a while? And then depending on where you are, I have a custom toolkit for you of free resources, as well as some paid opportunities, a mix of this free toolkit for you. To start the next phase of your journey based on wherever you are right now.

So I definitely encourage people to check that out. And there's, I mean, on the website are freebies like podcast links, like we're doing right. Other videos I've done webinars. So I'm also on social though, not super active, but you can find me at Instagram and Facebook, Samara Early Learning so yeah, I hope people will reach out.

[00:34:37]

Victoria Zablocki: Awesome. Well, thank you for your time. I appreciate it. And I'm sure plenty of people will get a lot out of this conversation.

[00:34:43]

Dr. Rachel Larimore: Yeah, thanks for having me. It's always great to see you and in a new platform and avenue.

[00:34:48]

Victoria Zablocki: I had so much fun interviewing Dr. Rachel A. Larimore today. If you couldn't tell, she is very passionate about nature based learning and has dedicated much of her life to helping more children find learning in nature.

When interviewing such a busy lady, you have to respect time. So we ended up having to rush off before I could say that I will link all of her links in the show notes. Make sure you go to naturallyteaching. com and check them out. And in those links, you can find her website where you can also purchase any of her books that we mentioned.

And she has a couple other ones that I mentioned in her bio. The fourth book that we were talking about Reimagining the Role of Teachers and Nature Based Learning: Helping Children Be Curious , Confident , and Caring will be available October 2nd. So it's not out yet. But it will be available soon and you can either purchase it on her website or you can get it off Amazon and I'll make sure to link her website in the show notes along with that quiz that she talked about, which sounds like a lot of fun.

So thanks again for listening and I hope that you learned lots from Rachel and take care. Make sure you reach out to her if you have any questions. She is a bank of knowledge and has been in this space for a long time. And like we talked about, she is a very passionate individual. So make sure to check her out on Instagram or send her a message through her website.

Thanks again for listening and until next time. Keep exploring, keep learning, and keep naturally teaching.

Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of the Naturally Teaching Elementary Science Podcast. I hope you found it informative, inspiring, and full of actionable insights to enhance your science teaching journey. Connect with me on social media for more updates, science tidbits, and additional resources.

You can find me on Instagram and Facebook at naturally. teaching. Let's continue the conversation and share our passion for elementary science education together. Don't forget to visit my website at naturallyteaching. com for all the show notes from today's episode. If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform.

Your feedback helps me improve and reach more educators just like you. Thank you again for listening, and until next time, keep exploring, keep learning, and keep naturally teaching.