S3-06: Identifying and addressing pseudoscience

Join us as we continue our discussion on the importance of integrating critical thinking into the science classroom with former teacher and current director of education at the Center for Inquiry, Bertha Vazquez. Listen as Bertha shares her experience with engaging students through identifying pseudoscience, and how developing these skills creates an identifiable impact on the real world.

For more from Bertha , check out the following resources:

• Check out Generation Skeptics to access some of the resources Bertha shared.
• Learn more about combatting pseudoscience at Science Saves.
• Find out more about the Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science.
• Get your free back-to-school toolkit from Amplify Science.

Episode Transcript

Student Project (00:00):
Are you tired of trying skincare products? We
offer miracle gummy bears thatclears acne, rashes, and other
skin problems.

Eric Cross (00:07):
Welcome to Science Connections. I'm your host Eric
Cross, and that was a soundfrom a real student project
advertising a fake skincareproduct. You may remember in
our last episode, we talkedwith Melanie Trecek-King, all
about using science to teachcritical thinking skills.
Melanie talked about preparingstudents to identify
misinformation in the realworld through creative

(00:28):
assignments like creating adsfor fake pseudoscience
products. On today's episode,we're going to talk to a middle
school science teacher whoadapted that assignment for her
own students. Her name isBertha Vasquez. She's from
Miami-Dade County, and she justretired from the classroom
after 30+ years. Bertha's nowstepping into a full-time role

(00:49):
as education director for theCenter for Inquiry. And in this
conversation we talk all aboutdeveloping critical thinking
skills in younger students. Shealso discusses her hope to
expand this work beyond theclassroom. I know you'll enjoy
this conversation with BerthaVasquez. Well, Bertha, welcome
to the show. Thanks for comingon.

Bertha Vasquez (01:09):
I'm very excited to be here.

Eric Cross (01:11):
I'm really excited for you to be here. When I
heard about you and what you'vedone, and we are ... you're my
people. Former seventh gradeteacher.

Bertha Vasquez (01:18):
Yes.

Eric Cross (01:18):
And can I just start off by saying—

Bertha Vasquez (01:19):
Yay!

Eric Cross (01:19):
I know, right? Can I start off by saying
congratulations? Thirty-threeyears in the game!

Bertha Vasquez (01:25):
Thirty-five! Thirty-three years at the same
school.

Eric Cross (01:27):
Thirty-three at the same site.

Bertha Vasquez (01:29):
Yeah. Actually, the same classroom. I loved my
classroom. One year in highschool and 34 in middle school.

Eric Cross (01:36):
That's amazing. I don't know if we'd be able to
distill down 33 years or 35years into a sentence, but your
secret? What do you tell newteachers who are just getting
into education?

Bertha Vasquez (01:46):
God, you gotta love. You gotta have passion
for this subject. And you haveto know what you wanna do,
which is to promote scienceappreciation, to teach science
for the awe and wonder that itengenders in people. That it
makes people feel awe andwonder about the natural world
around them if you teach itthat way. You last longer. I

(02:11):
think.

Eric Cross (02:12):
I agree with you. I just finished nine years and—

Bertha Vasquez (02:15):
Seventh grade?

Eric Cross (02:17):
Seventh grade the whole time.

Bertha Vasquez (02:19):
Oh, man. That's the toughest year.

Eric Cross (02:21):
You know what's funny is I originally wanted to
do high school, because I hadworked with high school
students in the past, and whenI started student teaching,
they put us in middle schoolfirst, and then they kinda put
you in high school. But Irealized that when I was
teaching middle school, I wasgetting them earlier in their
science experience.

Bertha Vasquez (02:40):
For sure.

Eric Cross (02:42):
And I was able to craft and shape what that
experience was like.

Bertha Vasquez (02:46):
For sure.

Eric Cross (02:47):
Hopefully to give them kind of like a trajectory
or momentum going into apositive direction. Because I
found that when they were inhigh school, many of the
students already hadexperiences and they've kind of
like had this schema, thismindset, already developed.

Bertha Vasquez (03:00):
Yes. And plus I have a silly side, and when I
did move to high school and Iput on a cape and explained
that science was a superpower,that we were gonna use our data
to make predictions and thingslike that, they kind of looked
at me like I was out my mind.
While seventh graders — Itaught sixth grade for 25
years, mixed in with seventhand eighth, and in the last

(03:22):
eight years of my career, Itaught seventh and eighth
graders — they love it. Theylove it when you try to run
through the door because, gee,I'm mainly empty space, right?
I'm made of atoms. And atomsare mainly empty space. And the
door is made of atoms.
Therefore the door is mainlyempty space. I should therefore

(03:42):
be able to run through thedoor. And they love it when you
crash into the door. In highschool, they thought I was
stupid, to be honest with you.


Eric Cross (03:53):
Right. When they're in that middle school age,
they're just enough like littlekid of like, that wonder that
awe and that silliness. Yousaid you've taught multiple
grade levels. Can we just maybego back and briefly talk about
your background a little bit?
Like how you started and thenkind of where you went through
your career?

Bertha Vasquez (04:08):
I didn't know what I wanted to do when I
finished college. And I had aminor in French, in French
history, French literature. Andthe opportunity came up to
teach in France for a year in aFrench high school. As a matter
of fact, in the South of Franceis where I went. And it was the
very first day. It was superearly in the morning, the

(04:28):
students rolled in and I justsaid, this is where I belong. I
didn't know I wanted to be ateacher until that point. I was
a biology major with achemistry minor and a French
minor. And I said, this iswhere I belong. I loved it.
Immediately. I went back home,I told my parents , and my
first year, I spent only half ayear. I was what you call a

(04:50):
permanent sub. I covered forsomebody who had to take some
time off. It was at a very,very difficult school. I was
what I would call baptism byfire. You know? I was picked up
by the school. I spent the 33years in, which is George
Washington Carver Middle Schoolin Coconut Grove, Miami-Dade

(05:10):
County. It is a language schoolwhere students learn their math
in Spanish, French . They taketheir humanities in Spanish,
French , German, or Italian.
It's a school full offoreigners, multilingualism,
very interested, excellentparents, wonderful colleagues.

(05:30):
And that's why I stayed therefor 33 years. Along the way, I
worked for National Board forProfessional Teaching Standards
for a long time. I don't knowif you know about the National
Board certification. . I wasrunning their scoring sites.
And then eight years ago Istarted working part-time for
the Richard Dawkins Foundationfor Reason and Science. And

(05:51):
that is why I retired from theclassroom last month, and I am
now working full-time for them.
They're now part of a largernonprofit called The Center for
Inquiry. That ran it through,right? I ran through the whole
33 years.

Eric Cross (06:05):
That was, well, that was great. And I know that
there's all kinds of subthings. I know there's some
honors that you had receivedand some accolades that you had
earned. Very humble, but like,well I'll talk about that and
maybe the intro. But you didsome amazing things and you
served so many students. And asa teacher, I look at teachers
like yourself who have spent acareer in education, and I kind

(06:28):
of feel like a little kid andgo, how did you do it? Like,
what did you do? What, whatkept you there? Because that's
where I want to be later on inmy career, is to be able to say
the same thing. Because yourimpact on the students at
Miami-Dade County is huge. I'msure you've seen kids that
you've taught over the yearsand --

Bertha Vasquez (06:42):
Oh yeah. I keep in touch with a lot of kids and
it's wonderful to hear whatthey have to say. It actually
brings tears to my eyes.

Eric Cross (06:51):
And that's the kind of the good tears that we want,
not the other ones.

Bertha Vasquez (06:55):
Yeah. I'll miss that part a lot.

Eric Cross (06:57):
Yeah. Well, so last time around, Melanie and I were
talking about what she's doingat her college with her
students to develop criticalthinking skills. And so I was
really interested in talking toyou because she had mentioned
you as being someone who helpeddevelop these skills with
middle school students. And so,I kind of wanna start off by

(07:17):
asking, why do you think it'simportant to try to teach these
skills at a middle schoollevel, these critical thinking
skills?

Bertha Vasquez (07:23):
Well I would say at the elementary school
level, not even at the middleschool level.

Eric Cross (07:26):
Oh. So we're gonna go back. We're gonna go back
there.

Bertha Vasquez (07:28):
Well, it's so important to be able to do
that. And I think I wanna shoutout to Melanie's work. If you
look at the NGSS standards,which so many states have
adopted, and even in stateslike Florida, Pennsylvania,
Texas, where they haven't beenadopted, those skills are
there, you know, I think theNGSS, they call Them science

(07:48):
and engineering practices. Andyou're talking about skills
like communicating, you'retalking about skills and
engaging in argumentation,asking questions , planning
investigations, analyzing data.
Those skills are there. And Ithink teachers get training in
those skills. What makesMelanie's work so important and

(08:09):
the critical thinking skillsthat you're talking about to
introduce in middle school, isthat she is specifically
targeting how to address thebarrage of pseudoscience that
we are now faced with on adaily basis on the internet, on
social media. And she'sspecifically targeting that

(08:30):
information and how to trainstudents to think, to discern
the difference betweenmisinformation and information.
And she has, I'm sure, as shecovered with you, a really good
way of doing that, you know?
But you have to teach itembedded in the content, for
sure. They have to have somecontent, Right? And I think not

(08:50):
just those skills, I think whatwe have to teach when we do
process in science is we haveto teach how science works. And
by that I mean teach humility,how scientists don't try to
prove themselves, right.
Scientists approach everyquestion with, how do I prove
myself wrong? And if we, as asociety, I mean -- I just wanna
be right, you know? No, Eric,you're wrong. I'm gonna dig my

(09:14):
heels in and I'm gonna say thatI'm right, especially if I'm
emotionally attached towhatever it is I'm arguing
about. And I think if we couldtrain students to be humble and
try to prove themselves wrong,that that would make, I don't
know, all societal dialoguebetter. And along with that

(09:34):
process, like I said earlier,to promote the idea that that
science is not some coldcalculating way of seeing the
world, but it's a way of seeingthe world with this wonder and
this awe that I thinkscientists carry within. I
think that's the atmosphere youwanna have in your classroom to
teach those science andengineering practices that the

(09:56):
NGSS espouses, etc. Does thatmake sense?

Eric Cross (10:00):
It does make sense, Bertha, I appreciate that. And
there's two things that yousaid that really stood out, and
I want to talk about both ofthose. When I said middle
school, you responded withelementary. So I wanna back up.
Can you talk more about that?
Why did you say that?

Bertha Vasquez (10:14):
Well, because the scientific method and
thinking critically is not inour nature. Our nature is to
believe our parents, right?
Because the kids who listen totheir parents did not fall over
the edge or get eaten by thepredator. And the person who
sat there, well, that ancient,ancient person, maybe even

(10:35):
before humans, who stood thereand saw rustling in the grass
and actually pulled out anancient clipboard and said,
hmm, let's see, what is thatrustling in the grass? Is it
the wind? Is it a predator? Isit a friend trying to sneak up
and scare -- that person goteaten by the predator that

(10:56):
little kid. So we don't havetheir genes. We have the genes
of the people who had aknee-jerk fear reaction and
said, I better run. So we'refighting, I think, the human
tendency to draw quickconclusions and knee-jerk
reactions and to be tribal. Soif we start in elementary

(11:17):
school to teach them to askquestions, to make decisions
based on evidence to feel okaywith being wrong , kids hate
losing at games, right? Theyget all grumpy

Eric Cross (11:31):
Not just, not just kids.

Bertha Vasquez (11:33):
Right. Yeah. If we can start this at the
earliest age possible to makethem think about things with
non-triggering subjects, Ithink the earlier the better.

Eric Cross (11:45):
That makes a lot of sense. Especially identifying
how biologically these areadaptations that we have for
survival. However, when they'reapplied in situations that are
not survival situations, theycan ultimately cause harm or
cause consequences that are notpositive. I wanted to pause and
kind of zoom out a little bitto this 30,000 foot view,

(12:07):
because I think this is really,really important. Can you speak
a little bit about why it'simportant to teach this big
picture? For instance, one ofthe things I think about with
pseudoscience, for me,something that's near and dear
to my heart that's personal, iswhen I think about some of my
elderly family members thatgrew up watching television

(12:27):
during an age when you trustedthe person on TV implicitly.
They had journalisticintegrity, all of those things.
They still watch televisionwith that same mindset. But the
content is different. And I'vewatched them lose money and buy
things that are ineffective.

(12:50):
That's one of the things Ithink about. But maybe, can you
talk a little bit about bigpicture and why this is so
important for this to be taughtfrom elementary all the way
through college?

Bertha Vasquez (12:59):
First of all, I never thought of it that way.
That's a great way to thinkabout it, that generation. But
also , what you're saying is weteach these skills in a science
class, but hopefully they usethose skills when they
encounter pseudoscience. Sodefinitely what we do on a
day-to-day basis is reallyimportant for society.

Eric Cross (13:22):
Absolutely. And I think the idea of teaching
students how to think is often,at least in what I've seen in
the standards, it's, so muchinformation and so many skills,
but this "how to" tends to getoverlooked. And that's why when
I talked to Melanie the firsttime, I said, this is something
that should be everywhere, inall of our classrooms. But yet

(13:43):
it's, it's not. And where canwe put this? Because there
isn't exactly, like, I didn'tsee a clear, this standard
tells you to teach it, but I ambound to standards. There's
standards that I have to teachin addition to all the other
things. Where do we put this?

Bertha Vasquez (13:59):
That is an excellent question, .
Actually, I think I have a chatin -- Melanie and I are gonna
speak next week because, toback up a little bit, the first
program that I started for theRichard Dawkins Foundation for
Reason and Science waspromoting evolution education.
Boy, that was easy because youhave to teach it, right? So I
would look at the statestandards and I'd see what is

(14:22):
natural selection, what is theevidence revolution , what is a
theory? All those things. Isaid, oh, I am giving teachers
a great deal here. I'm saying,here's an entire unit of
evolution with fun games, withactive learning ideas, with
your assessment, and it's gonnabe tested at the end of the
year. And boom, boy, size justexploded. That's Teacher

(14:45):
Institute for RevolutionaryScience. We have over, you
know, 300 workshops across all50 U. S. States. I have 80
presenters. It's been a veryeasy sell. This stuff, as you
said, you are bound to yourstandards. So how do we get
this into the classroom? Idon't think it necessarily has

(15:06):
to be the science classroom. Ihave had more success with
language arts classrooms. Youknow, they have to teach media
literacy, for example. So theyteach what's a credible source,
what's not a credible source.
We have lessons on ghoststories and haunted houses. So
you could teach it through yourstorytelling and the stories

(15:30):
and writing haunted stories andthings like that. So you could
teach it even while you'redoing literary devices or
whatever language arts teachershave to do. So we've had more
success with language arts. Interms of science, that's a
great question. I don't know ifI have the answer. Now that I'm
full-time, that's what I'mgonna be working on. Like how
do I sell this through thestandards? I know there's

(15:51):
science and engineeringpractices. Engaging argument
from evidence. There's an NGSSstandard. That practice of
asking questions,communication, those are NGSS
practices. So that's probablythe way to go.

Eric Cross (16:09):
Analyzing data, representing data, all of these
different things.

Bertha Vasquez (16:12):
Right. And drawing conclusions, changing
your mind. I always talk aboutthe humility of sciences and
the need to change their minds.

Eric Cross (16:21):
So, I wanna ask you, how do you do it? Nuts and
bolts. Teachers listening tothis, they're driving to work
or they're enjoying theirsummer vacation as they should
be, and they're like, you know,I am pragmatic. Like how do I
actually execute it? So can youtake us through how you adapted
Melanie's pseudoscience lessonfor your classroom when you did

(16:42):
that? Maybe start there?

Bertha Vasquez (16:43):
Sure. I also have another lesson on climate
change that is really tried andtrue.

Eric Cross (16:48):
Yeah. We can start with either one or talk about
both.

Bertha Vasquez (16:51):
Okay. And this is the reason I was in the New
York Times, like, I don't know,six months ago, because of the
climate change lesson that Idid. So first of all, it's not
really even in the standards,climate change in Florida,
ironically, or tragically Ishould say. Miami-Dade does
have it in their scope andsequence for the year, because

(17:12):
there are places you can placeit, right? So energy transfer
or how humans impact theirenvironment. I think the
Miami-Dade standards have itunder how humans impact their
environment. I put it underenergy transfer. So then it's,
okay, let's identify how do wemake electricity. So you do the
whole copper, wire, magnetthing and you know, how we burn

(17:34):
gas to boil water, to producesteam. There's all your
transfers of energy, right? Toget electricity, solar's a
little different. And wind,obviously you're not boiling
any water. But then they haveto tell me what climate change
is, 'cause a lot of kids don'teven know what that is. If I
had a dollar for every timethey told me it has to do with

(17:55):
the ozone layer, I'd beretiring in The Bahamas. And
then I say, this is how you getthe pseudoscience science in
there. Find me an article, findme a website that says climate
change is not happening or it'snot caused by humans. They do.
And now I say, let's follow themoney trail. Who wrote this?

(18:19):
What organization is it? And ofcourse, inevitably it's gonna
be the Heartland Institute.
It's gonna be the Cato or theMarshall Institute. Now who's
funding this institute? Andinevitably it's the Koch
brothers, it's Exxon, etcetera.
And they see the amount ofmoney that these industries
give these front groups. That'show I get it into the climate

(18:45):
change, and that's how I get itinto the energy unit. And I've
been doing that forever. Goodnews. It's getting harder and
harder to find articles thatsay climate change is not
caused by humans. And they do alot of cost comparisons between
solar, wind, nuclear, etcetera,and the traditional fossil fuel

(19:05):
forms of energy, and it'sgetting cheaper and cheaper to
produce energy that way. And soyou can really promote the idea
that it is the economy of thefuture. And so it's not just
about saving the birds, it'sabout promoting the U. S.
economy in a new century.

Eric Cross (19:23):
And I'm imagining that we get a lot more traction
when it promotes the economyversus when we're trying to
save the birds.

Bertha Vasquez (19:30):
Yeah, I do both. I say, yeah, this is a
win-win for everybody. So I getthe parents who don't care
about the birds, but their kidmakes some save electricity by
making 'em change out their airconditionings for Energy Star,
you know, devices and stuff.
And they're happy too, 'causeit's a win-win.

Eric Cross (19:46):
There's an interesting soft skill woven
into that where you're tryingto accomplish the same goal,
but you're meeting differentaudiences in different ways
that they would respond to. AndI don't know if that was
intentionally designed in that,but, I see that like, hey,
we're trying to save, you know,this ecosystem or for whatever
reason. And then another groupsays, hey, by saving this

(20:07):
ecosystem, it'll lower yourbills. And at the end of the
day, the end result is gonna bethe same. But both groups are
motivated by different factors,and you're kind of pivoting to
whatever one motivates them.

Bertha Vasquez (20:20):
Right. I think we are by nature, teachers are
by nature ,non-confrontational. So I
really don't wanna hear fromthe parents telling me I'm
brainwashing their kid . NowMelanie's is so, so important.
It is a little harder to weavein. There are some simple

(20:40):
inquiry skills that usually Iembed into the units
themselves. But what I'll do,you know, when I do Melanie's
stuff? I'll be honest with you,I did it the last week of
school. The kids already hadtaken their state tests, they
were checking out mentally, Igo , this is a perfect time to
do this. And they had a ball,or, you know, a day that half

(21:02):
the kids are gone becausethere's a field trip. A day
where they're leaving early, soyou don't have that much time
in the class. So I sneak it inthere, here and there, and I do
have to figure out how we canmake it part of what a teacher
has to teach. Like theevolution stuff that I promote.

Eric Cross (21:21):
For someone who may not have listened to Melanie's
episode or seen that lesson,can you walk us through step by
step what, for the brand newperson, what is it that you're
actually teaching? And thenwhat do you do? What, what's
the learning process maybethrough your lesson plan? What
are your students doing? Whatare you teaching?

Bertha Vasquez (21:38):
Okay, so Melanie had a beautiful article
called "How to SellPseudoscience." And she gives
you the seven tips that someoneuses to sell you a product that
really doesn't work. Forexample , they may use a lot of
scientific babble words, like,"it promotes the metabolism of
the cellular detoxification inthe electron transport chain of

(21:59):
the mitochondria." I justtotally made that up. It
doesn't mean anything, right?
Have an expert. If it's a hairgrowth thing, maybe you can
have a hair growth expert fromthe Cat Hairball Institute of
San Diego. Make the person buyinto it. So you make it a
money-back guarantee or yougive 'em half price on their

(22:21):
first purchase. So they'vebought it, and once they've
bought it, they're gonna bemore loyal to your product.
Make 'em suspicious of anybodywho questions the product. So,
"oh, big pharma doesn't wantyou to know this. This has been
a cure, but they don't want youto know because they're making
money." That's another one. Andthen appeal to ancient wisdom.

(22:42):
It's called logical fallacy.
Like , " based on ancient plantwisdom" or "used for thousands
of years." All these are, shebreaks 'em into nine things
that are used to sellpseudoscience. The lesson is on
young skeptics right now. Ishow those nine tips to my
class. They , love it. You havea class paying attention, I can

(23:05):
guarantee you that. And then Isay, now you guys are going to
create an ad, either a 2D ad ora video to sell a
pseudoscientific product. Andimmediately they're running
into their groups and they'resaying, we're gonna sell nail
growth or a height, or, youknow, sometimes they push the

(23:28):
envelope a little bit and theywanna do butt enhancement and
other types of enhancementwhere I've said no. But
, I guess Melanie could do thatin college. I'm not gonna do
that in middle school.

Eric Cross (23:40):
Wise choice. Wise choice.

Bertha Vasquez (23:41):
Yeah, I don't wanna get in trouble. Plus it's
not appropriate. But anyway,then they create these ads and
they send them to me and weshow them all in the classroom.
I guarantee you that thosestudents, when they walked into
a store with their parents andthey saw the product that has
money-back guarantee and curesway too many things, and it's

(24:02):
based on ancient plant wisdomand the scientific language on
the box, they may go, "Mom, youknow, I think these people are
trying to sell you somepseudoscience." They're ready
to react in an evidence-basedmanner before running into the
product.

Eric Cross (24:22):
So if I was mentoring a new teacher and
helping 'em write the lessonobjective, remember like, I
don't know , did you ever haveto do like lesson objectives
and put 'em on your wall sothat students could see? And
everybody who walks by can see.

Bertha Vasquez (24:35):
I love how you, you're bringing me back to if
you're a new teacher, if you'rea teacher, how do you put this
into your lesson plans?

Eric Cross (24:44):
Well, can I come up with a lesson objective, and
you let me know, and let'smaybe do this together. So ,
I'm just gonna use theframework: Given this students
can. So like, given a creativecommercial idea or given
instruction on pseudoscience,students can demonstrate their
ability to do critical thinkingby creating a pseudoscience ad

(25:06):
or maybe can demonstrate thenine elements of -- how would
we finish that?

Bertha Vasquez (25:12):
Identifying pseudoscience.

Eric Cross (25:16):
So given a lesson on pseudoscience, students can
demonstrate the nine tacticscompanies use to sell
pseudoscientific products.

Bertha Vasquez (25:26):
Right. And then what we'd have to do, I think a
teacher would have to do, andso many state standards, they
might be slightly different,but the idea is the same. Find
what standard are you actuallycovering with that? And there
are standards that talk aboutscientific literacy, and we
need scientifically literatecitizens, you know, for society

(25:51):
today. It can fit, it can fit

Eric Cross (25:56):
Well. I wanna go back to what you said about
English language arts being abig part of this because the
first thing that popped up inmy head was interdisciplinary,
transdisciplinary, this gettingout of silos and going back and
forth and giving--

Bertha Vasquez (26:10):
Oh yeah.

Eric Cross (26:10):
Oftentimes, and of course I'm biased and you'll
likely agree with me on this ,but I think our content is
exciting intrinsically. I thinkit's just the way the world
works and everyone's interestedin different elements to
different degrees.

Bertha Vasquez (26:24):
I think it's much easier yes. To teach
science sometimes than the pasttense and French.

Eric Cross (26:30):
And we need the skills from other content areas
to help students be able tocommunicate their ideas in
science or access their ideasin science. And when we're able
to share those things acrossback and forth, students love
it because it's like thesesimilar concepts, but we look
at it from different angles. SoI'm wondering if an English
teacher partnered with ascience teacher and did this,

(26:51):
the thing I wrote down when youwere talking was ... the
activity was called upset yourscience teacher. And , I
imagine English teachers takingthis lesson because it's
totally media literacy, right?
Critical thinking. It's allthere.

Bertha Vasquez (27:03):
Yeah. It's totally media literacy.

Eric Cross (27:05):
Absolutely. And then the science teacher, the
science class, or studentsevaluate it for claim evidence
reasoning. They evaluate theeffectiveness of it or whether
it's true or whether there arepseudoscience aspects of it .
And students are looking ateach other's work, but through
two different lenses.

Bertha Vasquez (27:21):
Right. I love it. And I loved it when, early
on in my career we didinterdisciplinary stuff. And to
sit with other teachers anddevelop lessons, that's one of
the most exciting things aboutteaching. We're always so stuck
in our own classrooms. And it'sreally hard nowadays with all
of the responsibilities and thetesting to do stuff like that.

(27:43):
But that's effective teachingright there.

Eric Cross (27:45):
How did your students receive it? So you did
this with your kids, you saidthey love , like, what was the
response?

Bertha Vasquez (27:51):
Oh, I could have walked out of the room,
gone across the street to thecoffee shop, ordered some
coffee, sat down for a while ,come back and they would not
have noticed I was gone.
Except, because they were soexcited to show me what they
were doing as they were doingthe assignment. I have never

(28:11):
had such buy-in in my life.
. They loved it . And Ihave some samples of that,
which I think you can show aswell.

Eric Cross (28:20):
We actually have a sample of one of your real
student projects that we canplay.

Student Project (28:28):
Are you tired of trying skincare products? We
offer miracle gummy bears thatclears acne, rashes, and other
skin problems for only $9 99.
You only need to eat one everytwo weeks. And in about two
months, your skin will look andfeel great as new. When you eat
one, it goes into your skinpores and clears all the
glycerol and createsmonosaccharides that phosphates

(28:50):
your skin. This product ...

Bertha Vasquez (28:52):
So that was a group of girls, and I can see
them in my mind. One of them,the main person was, her name
was Carolina . So they'rehitting the, the science babble
, you know about thephosphorylation,
monosaccharides, you could tellthat's a biology class. 'cause
they had some of thatterminology. Make it not
expensive , make it cure thingsright away, you don't use

(29:14):
anecdotal evidence, don't useactual data. So they're hitting
some of the points. The rubricshowed they had to hit five out
of the nine to get an A.

Eric Cross (29:23):
When I listened to that video, it felt real. It
felt like it could be a realone . And I like I knew what it
was, but it was so close toreal things that I've seen and
heard.

Bertha Vasquez (29:39):
Yeah. I have some gems. I really have some
really, really funny ones whereyou're crying and they're
really real. Exactly. Yeah.
That was a good one. There wasanother one on improving the
quality of your hair that wasreally, really funny. And then
some of them opted to do the 2Dyou know, they just did a
PowerPoint and then saved it asa jpeg. And if you go online,

(30:01):
it looks like the real thing.
You know, they actually, andI'm not gonna mention the
products here 'cause I don'twanna get sued, but they found
products, they came back to mewith products that are
definitely pseudoscience, thatwere using the exact same
things that the kids wereusing. And this is the type of,
you know, modern literacy thatour kids need to have when they

(30:22):
walk out of our classrooms.

Eric Cross (30:24):
These activities are so close to home. I feel
like when I look at this, thisisn't something that's some
kind of abstract thing. This issomething they could have done
and then went home and theirparents are watching that or
they're watching it. Do youremember, did you ever have
experiences where studentswere, where you watched this
connection between what theywere creating and the fact that
they've actually seen this likerecently? I can imagine a

(30:44):
scenario where a student'smaking this and they go, wait a
second, we just boughtsomething based on this. Did
that ever happen? Or did youever see these kind of moments?

Bertha Vasquez (30:53):
Yes. Actually the parents have. So my school
has a pretty wealthydemographic. Most of the
parents have college degrees.
They're professionals. So theyhave the money to buy stuff at
Whole Foods. And they havegreat products at Whole Foods,
but they also promote the wholenon-GMO thing. And some of the

(31:19):
students said they went homeand the parents weren't
thrilled. Because the kids arelike, that's baloney that no
GMO thing. There's nothingwrong with GMOs and things like
that. And so I got a littlepushback about some of that,
but hey, you know, that's theonly way we grow right? By
disagreeing with each other andfinding out that we're wrong.
It's one of the problems wehave today is that everybody's
in their little echo chamberand there's no growth taking

(31:41):
place.

Eric Cross (31:42):
Right. And when you're teaching people to
critically think and askquestions, which is what we do
as teachers, is teach ourstudents how to think, yeah,
you are gonna create friction.
There's gonna be heat that'sgenerated. But like you said,
it's really important that weteach our students how to
analyze information anddisagree without being
disagreeable. So I think it'son one of the shirts, like

(32:04):
being humble or like you hadsaid, staying humble. Being
curious, being skeptical, butbeing humble as well as being
the key point of it.

Bertha Vasquez (32:12):
Absolutely.

Eric Cross (32:12):
And then going back to what you said earlier about
defending turf, not going inlike scientists. Like you were
saying that when you'reteaching your students, where I
am looking to be wrong, I wannaprove myself wrong. And that's
not how they're raised to thinkI want to be right. And when

(32:33):
I'm wrong, I'm gonna dig myheels in and defend turf
because I am my beliefs or I ammy viewpoint, my identity is
attached to what I think. Andit's not movable. And that is a
huge problem that we see. Butit's reinforced in our kids all
the time from what they see inthe world.

Bertha Vasquez (32:52):
Yes. And I think the best way to preface a
lesson where they might realizesome of the stuff they believe
isn't true. That is the mottofor our program. Don't believe
everything you believe, by theway. The best way to begin a
lesson is saying, I tried theseproducts or I purchased this

(33:15):
online. I've been stung onInstagram. You know, I've
bought a couple of things andthen I get them in the mail and
it's not what I expected. Useyourself. We've all been stung,
right? I think about what Ibelieved 20, 30 years ago and
some of it was wrong. Right?
And that's okay. So useyourself because that's a

(33:35):
perfect model for humility aswell.

Eric Cross (33:37):
I think it's incredibly powerful to be able
to be surrounded by a communityof people who are asking
questions and genuinelycurious, but also maintain that
humility about things. I mean,there's a lot of power in that.
And that quote, "Don't believeeverything you believe." Now,
I'm gonna order that shirt. I'msure now you'll go on a website
s ometime soon.

Bertha Vasquez (33:56):
Yeah. We are launching , it was called Young
Skeptics, the program, but fora number of reasons, we're
changing the name and we'relaunching it in August under
Generation Skeptics. And that'sthe motto. Don't believe
everything you believe. Andit'll be
generationskeptics.org. Andthese lessons are there. And
not only do you have the slidepresentation, you have the

(34:18):
lesson plan, you have thestudent worksheet, you have the
teacher notes and the rubrics.
And I make sure thateverything's in a word form, a
modifiable form. Because ifthere's something that might
work for you that's not inthere, or you don't like
something that I wrote, you canchange it. Or the lesson plans,
it's a Word document, so ifyour state has specific lesson

(34:39):
plans, 'cause mine are a littlegeneric 'cause I'm trying to
meet the standards of the wholecountry, you could cut and
paste your standards in there.

Eric Cross (34:47):
Those are words spoken by a veteran teacher who
knows how to differentiate forher audience. So --

Bertha Vasquez (34:53):
Yeah. Modify,

Eric Cross (34:54):
Well done. And thank you for doing that. So we
talked about the pseudosciencelesson, and we talked about
your lesson for evaluatingarticles about climate change.
Overall, what are yourtakeaways from these
experiences as far as studentsdeveloping critical thinking
skills, like with your kids?
Were they effective? What wereyour main takeaways that you

(35:14):
noticed after implementing them?

Bertha Vasquez (35:16):
You wanna do stuff in your classroom that's
gonna translate to real life.
I'm always looking for reallife connections. You know, if
I'm teaching DNA and genes, I'mgonna talk about insurance
companies and your privatemedical information. And now
that we can identify genes thatmight lead, you know, never for

(35:37):
sure, but can possibly lead tobreast cancer, for example. We
talk about, well, who shouldhave this information? What
about attorneys? What aboutinsurance companies? What about
the government? I think youalways wanna have that real
life connection and the lessonsthat we just talked about.
Totally have that real lifeconnection. You know, what's
gonna happen outside of yourclassroom. It's not just gonna

(35:59):
be in inside.

Eric Cross (36:00):
The relevance is huge. The relevance part of it
is making it real life, 'causewhat are the things that we
hear that students say? Or atleast it's almost like a meme
now. Like, when am I ever gonnause this? Why does this matter
to me ?

Bertha Vasquez (36:10):
Oh yeah, yeah.
By the way, that reminds me. SoI run three programs, three
projects for the Center forInquiry. And we've been talking
about generation skeptics.
There's another one calledScience Saves. And all it does
is promote scienceappreciation. And because I
start the year trying to teachkids, you know, science is all

(36:32):
about wonder, it's about awe, Iask them to draw me a
scientist, and inevitably theydraw me, the old guy with the
crazy hair, with the lab coatstanding in front of the
chemicals. Try it. Every childminus two possibly. A group of
30, 28 kids are gonna draw theguy with the lab coat with the
crazy hair and the gogglesstanding in front of a table

(36:53):
full of chemicals. And then wetalk about that's not what a
scientist does. And by the way,on the last day of school, I do
it again. And they drawthemselves and they draw
themselves scuba diving or theydraw themselves climbing a
volcano or developing newmaterials for their skateboards
or new candy or whatever. But Ifollow that, draw me a

(37:16):
scientist. Actually, that'swhat they do while I take role
the first day of school. Drawme a scientist. And then I
pretend to be very upsetbecause all the pictures are
the same stupid old guy withthe crazy hair. And then we
have a lesson, we have dozensof lessons on science saves,
but one of them is calledScience Saves Lives. And I
feature three examples of howscience saves lives or improves

(37:39):
lives. One's an artificialheart, one is a portable
dialysis, and one is a 3Dprinted robotic hand for
children. And then I say, okayguys, sky's the limit. Sky's
the limit. Create something tobenefit society or the world.
And they get into teams andthey create glasses that help
blind people see. Or theycreate a machine that takes

(38:02):
carbon out of the air, or theycreate an x-ray machine that
can diagnose all forms ofcancer. Obviously, they don't
know the science behind thesethings. So I had a group of
students, just this year, justlast year, who created a brain
implant that helps victims ofparalysis move. I thought,

(38:22):
okay, that's super cool,whatever, they did it. And
they're just drawing theproduct with descriptions. It's
not that complicated. Well,guess what, about three months
after we did this, the kidscame back to me and it's called
Brain Spinal Interface. Andit's a thing where you implant
an implant in someone's brainand they can walk again and

(38:44):
they can move their handsagain. So what they had made
for fun, saying, yay, sciencesaves , let's do something
cool. They couldn't believe it.
It blew them away that it wasactually a thing that
scientists had developed.

Eric Cross (38:59):
Even the fact that they came up with the idea
without maybe knowing the wholescience or engineering behind
it, is extremely validating fora young person. A young person!
Like everybody! Like that wasmy idea. And then you see it,
that is extremely rewarding. Ican only imagine how excited
they were.

Bertha Vasquez (39:14):
Right. You get future engineers doing stuff
like that. And that's how Istart the year after I have
them draw me a scientist, whichshouldn't take more than, you
know, 20 minutes while you'retaking role . I start the year
with that lesson to make themrealize what science is
actually about. You know, it'snot about blowing stuff up,
like the cartoon typescientists, but scientists are

(39:37):
actually people trying toimprove the world, asking
questions and looking foranswers in a certain way. Like
our scientific method in theprocess of science.

Eric Cross (39:46):
Right. Let's talk about your current work. So
you're at this transitionpoint, at least last year,
where you've spent this largesegment of time serving
students directly in theclassroom. And I wanna talk
about what you're doing now andwhy you're focused on finding
ways to develop these skillsoutside of the classroom. So
when you're thinking about theprograms that you're kind of

(40:08):
coming up with and puttingtogether, what are you thinking
of? What are you imagining?

Bertha Vasquez (40:11):
Well, like I said, evolution was an easy
sell . So I have threeprograms. I have the Teacher
Institute for EvolutionaryScience. That's TIES. That's
been wildly successful. Then wehave Science Saves, which
promotes science appreciation.
And then we have GenerationSkeptics, which is supposed to
promote the type of criticalthinking that we need in this

(40:35):
society of ours with thisbarrage of misinformation
hitting us every day . And it'sonly gonna get worse, I think
with AI, you know, as thatstarts getting more and more
common. When you said out ofthe classroom, one of my pet
peeves, is thateverything everybody comes up
with, "oh, teachers need to dothis." So bicycles safety, oh,

(40:56):
it could be in elementaryschool; helmet safety,
elementary school; strangerdanger, stick it in there; say
no to drugs, stick it in there;promote critical thinking,
stick it in there. It's alwaysthe teachers and I especially
feel for my elementary schoolteacher friends because they
have so much to cover and theyhave all these tests looming
over their heads, but now theyhave to do: say no to drugs ,

(41:17):
stranger danger, bicycle safety, food safety, sexual physical
and emotional abuse, all thestuff that we have to do. So I
thought, what if I startthinking about ways to take
this out of the teacher'shands? So I started with TIES.
I created a celebrate DarwinDay entire program where you

(41:38):
are a secular group or you area bookstore, or you are a
university, and you're like,well, what the heck do I do? I
wanna celebrate Darwin Day. Butthat seems like too much work.
If you download the packagethat I created, you have your
stations, you have your QRcodes, you have your hands-on,
you have your signs, you justhave to print them out. And it

(42:00):
makes it a lot easier for anon-classroom person, you know,
a non-teacher to celebrateDarwin Day. I've been doing
summer camps. So yesterday wedid a lesson on Scooby-Doo and
ghosts at a summer camp here inSouth Florida. It's a Taekwondo
summer camp. The kids watchedan episode of Scooby-Doo. And

(42:22):
boy Scooby was amazing. Youknow, the guy who's faking the
ghosts always has somefinancial reason to make people
think that they're ghosts.
Right? Doesn't that sound likeMelanie's stuff? Doesn't that
sound like the misinformationthat we're dealing with? So we
watched the episode with thekids, and this is my language

(42:43):
arts teacher, friend who camewith me. And then we talked
about the evidence that theyfound to prove that the ghost
wasn't real. And then thereason why the guy wanted to
make you think -- it wasn't aghost, actually it was a
headless monster. And of coursehe had treasure and he wanted
to keep people away from thetreasure. So that's another
couple of lessons on theGeneration Skeptics page, which

(43:06):
is using Scooby-Doo toteach ghost stories and things
like that. So I'm thinkingsummer camps. I went last
January to a Unitarian churchin Naples, and we did the
lessons there. I also have agroup of experts. I have a
ghost hunter, I have a moonlanding expert, I have a

(43:29):
psychic expert. I have peoplethat are willing to zoom into
your classroom and your summercamp and your library, or
whatever, and talk to youraudience about ghost hunting or
psychics or moon landings. SoI'm excited about that.

Eric Cross (43:50):
How long have you been working on this program
for?

Bertha Vasquez (43:53):
October 2021.

Eric Cross (43:54):
2021. Got it. Okay.

Bertha Vasquez (43:55):
Yeah, I did some summer camps last year.
I've developed some lessons. Mylanguage arts colleague
developed some lessons, but nowwe're ready to launch it for
real, under the name GenerationSkeptics. The other thing that
we're thinking out of theclassroom is we're gonna start,
we already have one teacher,high school clubs with bylaws

(44:17):
and afterschool club for thestudents where the students run
the club and where theseexperts can Zoom in and talk to
the students about all of thesedifferent forms of
misinformation orpseudoscience. So it's also out
of the classroom, becauseagain, coming back to your
point, I'm not sure how manyactual state standards or NGSS

(44:40):
standards we're gonna findwhere these lessons fit nicely.
So I need to put it somewhereelse.

Eric Cross (44:46):
And to your point, with science, often taking a
backseat to other content areasbecause of state testing, a lot
of science teachers aren't evenable to get to all their
standards because they're justnot given the time. And so the
fact that you're building acurriculum that's high quality
, but also thinking with theclassroom teacher mindset and
thinking about us and those ofus who are still trying to

(45:08):
build up to that, you know,birth of Vazquez legacy , we
appreciate that because yes,clubs, afterschool activities,
all of those things are, aregreat avenues for it.

Bertha Vasquez (45:20):
Yeah. Museums also have shown interest to
partner with us, like theweekend children's events and
things like that, so theparents can take them. I also
have a very largehome-schooling population that
I've done some work with andthe parents want these lessons

(45:40):
to do with their kids at home.
So there's anotherout-of-the-classroom avenue.

Eric Cross (45:46):
And it sounds like it's very inclusive. Like you
had mentioned that theUnitarian church and other
groups, and oftentimes whathappens in pop culture, or not
pop culture, but maybe justlike in media in general, is
things are very binary. And soskepticism is often closely
linked with being areligious,no religious or spiritual

(46:06):
beliefs whatsoever. And thenthe other side, let's say
someone had metaphysicalbeliefs, beliefs that may be
are not scientificallyverifiable. Can you also
exercise this muscle ofskepticism in other aspects?

Bertha Vasquez (46:20):
Yes. Yes. I think you can exercise this
muscle in other aspects. So forexample, I have this book that
we published on teachingevolution, and it's teachers
around the country telling you,this is my favorite lesson ,
this is my favorite lab, thisis how I address
misconceptions, this is myfavorite book. If you look at

(46:40):
these 16 authors, there's agreat diversity. There's urban,
there's rural, there's middleschool, there's high school,
and yes, there's atheists andthere's very religious people
in the book.

Eric Cross (46:53):
Would it be fair to say that we would be doing a
service to society if everyone,regardless of what your beliefs
are about, I mean, metaphysicsor whatever, if everyone was
practicing this, we would see apositive change in society.

Bertha Vasquez (47:07):
I think so.
Absolutely. And yeah, just theidea of approaching each other
with a little more humility,willing to hear the other side
and have a respectfulconversation.

Eric Cross (47:17):
And how those conversations are had ... it
seems like a big part of this,right? Like being able to not
only exercise humility andlistening, but also having some
humility in how you explain orshare things. I think that is
also important. Both on thereceiver and the listener and
yeah, the giver side. I findthat it's a two-way street. It
needs to, it needs to go bothways.

Bertha Vasquez (47:38):
It's hard when there's an emotional attachment
to your belief. For example, Idid a radio show, and it's easy
to laugh at people who disagreewith you. But, I brought up
GMOs again. I bring up GMOs andit really turned off the host.
So I know what Melanie tries todo in her work and what we're

(48:00):
trying to do in ours is to makepeople practice, use that
muscle, as you called it, witha non-triggering topic. I just
visited the springs in CentralFlorida. Central Florida has
these beautiful natural springsyou could get on an inner tube
and float down peacefully asthe birds fly by. And people
were jokingly talking about themermaids that live in the

(48:22):
springs, AKA the manatees. Butwe decided, I'm gonna write a
lesson on how to figure outthat mermaids in the springs
don't actually exist andpractice all the skills in
Melanie's toolkit. And it'ssuch a fun, non-triggering

(48:42):
subject, kind of like theghosts, that that's the way to
do it. You don't have totrigger people with the beliefs
that they actually hold dear.
Does that make sense?

Eric Cross (48:53):
It does. What I'm hearing you say is you can
build the skill of criticalthinking, but you don't need to
step on these kind of landminetopics that people have been
deeply vested into, have beensocialized for, things that
kind of bypass our rationalthinking and go straight to the
heart, which can actually be adiversion from what you're
actually trying to build in theperson. It's essentially
differentiation. That's whatI'm hearing is you're

(49:16):
differentiating for youraudience and you're picking
topics that are kind of, youknow, more neutral, but yet the
person's still able to, topractice this transferable
skill that they might actuallyon their own, organically
transfer over at some point intime. Just not right now. When
you and I are talking face toface. It's a little bit too
intense.

Bertha Vasquez (49:34):
I love that you said it way better than I did.
Thank you, .

Eric Cross (49:38):
Well it's so clear to me as you're explaining this
, the value of it. And for me,I want this to be an idea that
regardless of what yourbackground coming into it is,
it's something that we can allpractice. It doesn't need to be
these polarized groups. This issomething that can be applied
to all situations. And I foundin my own personal journey that
as I've grown or learned or notbelieved all of my beliefs or

(50:02):
questioned my own beliefs, I'veevolved. And if anything, it's
kind of got me to a point inlife where I have more
questions than answers. Istarted off going and asking 10
questions and now I have10,000. And I've kind of become
comfortable in this tensionthat I live in so many things.
You know, there's certainthings that I'm more passionate
about. But there's other thingswhere it's like that muscle of

(50:24):
being skeptical and askingquestions and being curious and
being in a community of peoplewho support that, I think
that's really, really importanttoo. Because going back to what
you said earlier, it's easy tobe in an echo chamber, whether
it's on social media or athought bubble, whatever it is,
people who just resonate yourown views, whether it's online
or in person. And we think thatthat's the only way, and in

(50:46):
reality, we're doing ourselvesa disservice and we could end
up spending more money buyingthose power bands with a little
holographic thing. Rememberthat thing? Remember that thing
they used to sell at the mall?
.

Bertha Vasquez (50:55):
Yeah. Coming back to the classroom, when you
find out that what you thoughtwas gonna happen doesn't
happen, it's up to the teacherto model that behavior to go,
"Oh my God, how cool we werewrong! That's exciting. We're
gonna learn something new now!"You know, make the kids realize
that being wrong isn't always abad thing.

Eric Cross (51:17):
Yeah. I think that's critical. You're right.
We need to model exactly whatwe're teaching our kids.
Bertha, your passion and yourjoy is balanced by the gravity
and seriousness of howimportant this is to you.

Bertha Vasquez (51:33):
It is. It is very important to me.

Eric Cross (51:34):
And it's exactly how you started. I asked you in
the beginning, what kept you inthis for so long? And what I
heard essentially is thisexistential like joy, passion,
belief in what you're doing.
And that's come out again andagain and again, and so much
respect for you andappreciation for not only the
time that you spent serving ourkids, but what you continue to

(51:56):
do to serve those of us who areserving kids. And you continue
to do it. Thank you for that.

Bertha Vasquez (52:01):
Thank you. I hope to improve the product
over time.

Eric Cross (52:04):
I have no doubt.
And we are gonna put links tothe resources that you have
shared. And these are all freefor educators, is that right?

Bertha Vasquez (52:14):
All free. And if you have to buy materials,
you're looking at under $5 at agrocery store. That was one of
my things that I wanted, wasthat these materials be
accessible to everybody.

Eric Cross (52:24):
Keeping students in mind, keeping teachers in mind,
this is gonna impact so manystudents. And earlier you
talked about Science Saves. Soyou hold a video scholarship
contest in which you askstudents to submit
20-to-30-second videos aboutthe importance of science. And
I'd like to close out just bysharing snippets from a couple
of those videos.

Student 1 (52:43):
Science saved my brother Nathan when he was
diagnosed with autism at theage of two. Fluoxetine, Prozac
and occupational therapyresearch saved my brother from
his tormenting anxiety attacksand OCD by increasing the
serotonin levels in his brain.

Student 2 (52:56):
Science has been the way through which I've been
able to give back to the world.
Whether that be developing amicrofinancing platform for the
unbanked or helping over 70,000educationally underserved
individuals through STEMworkshops. it's been the way
that I take my research frombench to bedside and actually
make science actionable inpeople's lives. One notable way
that I've done this is bydeveloping the We Arm, which is

(53:16):
a low-cost prosthetic arm forindividuals with below the
elbow amputations. Hashtag sidesaves because it's now being
piloted in places like Ukraineto help limb loss patients.

Student 3 (53:24):
Imagine living with not one but two autoimmune
diseases, Hashimoto's Thyroidand Type one Diabetes. Despite
these challenges, my graphicdesign teacher, Ms . Ashe
faced, medical science providedher with the treatments and
technologies she needs tomanage her health.

Bertha Vasquez (53:39):
That's awesome.
The young man with a prostheticarm won $10,000 cash. He's
going to Stanford University inthe fall. So every year we give
away $15,000 to students whomake the best 30-second videos
on how science has improvedtheir lives or the lives of
someone they know. That's onthe Science Saves page.

Eric Cross (53:58):
And is that open to just students in Florida?

Bertha Vasquez (54:01):
All high school seniors. All U. S. high school
seniors across the country.
This year we had over 300entries. Last year was our
first year, we had over 200. Iget to watch all those videos,
, and then I picked thetop 30 or 40 of those, and I
passed them on to the bigjudges, I call them. And , we

(54:21):
have last year's top 10 andthis year's top 10 at
sciencesaves .org/scholarship .
And yeah, it's great to seekids realizing that.

Eric Cross (54:35):
And it's great to see you carrying that torch for
educators and for students andfor reminding everybody that
science saves and makingpractical applications and
empowering students andrewarding them for being able
to do it. Bertha , thank you somuch for joining us today.

Bertha Vasquez (54:50):
Yes. This was lots of fun. I felt like we
should have just had like acoffee or a beer while we did
this conversation.

Eric Cross (54:56):
When I come out to Florida, I'll look you up and
we can continue.

Bertha Vasquez (55:00):
Okay. Sounds awesome. We'll go to the
Everglades, do some birding.

Eric Cross (55:03):
I'm in, I'm in.
Thanks so much for listening tomy conversation with Bertha
Vasquez, education director forthe Center for Inquiry. Check
out the show notes for links tothe Center for Inquiry website
as well as resources thatBertha and I discussed. And
we'd love to know what youthought of the episode in our
Facebook discussion group,Science Connections: The

(55:24):
Community. And make sure youdon't miss any new episodes of
Science Connections bysubscribing to the show
wherever you get podcasts. Andwhile you're there, we'd really
appreciate if you can leave usa review 'cause it'll help more
listeners to find the show. Youcan find more information on
all of Amplify shows at ourpodcast hub. Go to
amplify.com/hub. That'samplify.com/hub. Thanks again

(55:48):
for listening.