California Naturalist

For this episode of “The Positive Fantastic” Podcast about the California Naturalist program, I joined two amazing women to discuss a course that I completed this year about California’s natural environment. The California Naturalist program scratched a lot of my nerdy itches, and I think it might scratch some of yours too. Using an interdisciplinary approach to learn about the ecology of California, the program dives into the natural world from multiple angles, bringing in specialists in each field to share about their area of expertise. 

One of the women that I interviewed, Jen Riddell, I met many many moons ago when my son was just a kindergardener. A group of homeschooling parents would get together and do fun things with our kids. We invited Jen, who has a PhD in lichens to come talk to our playgroup on nature walks. Jen, incidentally, is the main teacher for the botany portion of the California Naturalist course, and also the main facilitator of the program’s classes. 

Hannah Bird lives and works at the UC Hopland Extension Center where the class is held. I met her many years ago as well, when she was leading different educational nature programs through the Solar Living Institute in Hopland. She pops in and out of the class, and acts as a director of the different educational and stewardship happenings on the UC land. 

They’re lovely, well-informed and just may convince you to join the program over the course of this podcast. If you don’t live in Mendocino County, there are a wealth of California Naturalist programs all over the state that you can participate in. For more information, you can visit the UC Naturalist website.