Planet Bonehead: Revolutionary Approaches to Climate Education

Speaker A 00:00:00

I help teachers teach kids about climate change without all the doom and gloom.

Speaker A 00:00:06

I talk to green technology leaders all the time, and I have met so many people whose single piece of technology could solve climate change tomorrow.

Speaker A 00:00:17

So I want to introduce kids to fields that they don't know exist, and that there's things out there that they could be when they grow up that they don't even know about.

Speaker A 00:00:28

And then if they knew about them, they'd be like, that's.

Speaker A 00:00:30

That's amazing.

Speaker A 00:00:31

I want to be that I could take these green tech things, these amazing programs and projects that are out there that could solve climate change, and I could explain it in a way that kids get it.

Speaker A 00:00:46

The art is what makes it tangible for the masses.

Speaker A 00:00:49

The art is what makes it more exciting so that everybody wants to be a part of it.

Speaker A 00:00:56

I want to empower them to be part of the solution at home and at school.

Speaker A 00:00:59

Right now, GreenTech is saving the world, but nobody knows about it.

Speaker A 00:01:03

And it's true.

Speaker A 00:01:04

You would never know that we have all the solutions to climate change from watching the news on climate change.

Speaker A 00:01:12

I want kids to not only know about the problems and the solutions, but to feel empowered to do something about it right now while they're kids.

Speaker B 00:01:20

Hello, my name is Mark Taylor, and welcome to the Education on Far podcast, the place for creative and inspiring learning from around the world.

Speaker B 00:01:34

Listen to teachers, parents, and mentors share how they are supporting children to live their best, authentic life and are proving to be a guiding light to us all.

Speaker B 00:01:42

Hi, Bobby.

Speaker B 00:01:43

Thank you so much for joining us here on the Education on Far podcast.

Speaker B 00:01:46

Great to chat to someone who's really passionate about what they do with the resilience of having done it over a long period of time.

Speaker B 00:01:52

This, this topic, this subject is obviously something dear to everybody's heart and needs a lot of conversation and a lot of action, which is what you're doing.

Speaker B 00:01:59

So, yeah, thanks so much for being here.

Speaker A 00:02:01

Thanks, Mark.

Speaker A 00:02:02

I appreciate it.

Speaker A 00:02:03

I'm very happy to be here.

Speaker B 00:02:05

So for those who haven't come across Planet Bonehead before, just give us a little idea and a little glimpse into what it is that you're doing.

Speaker A 00:02:12

Yeah.

Speaker A 00:02:13

Basically, my elevator pitch is that I help teachers teach kids about climate change without all the doom and gloomy.

Speaker A 00:02:21

And the thing that, you know, that I'm trying to do is I've learned that teachers want to teach kids about climate change and kids want to learn about it.

Speaker A 00:02:32

But teachers generally lack three things.

Speaker A 00:02:35

They lack the knowledge, the resources, and the support to do it.

Speaker A 00:02:39

Well, the knowledge Being that they don't really understand climate change all that well, and there are a lot of myths and facts and misinformation and there's a hoax and all that kind of stuff is out there.

Speaker A 00:02:52

And it's very difficult, difficult for the average person who's not a scientist, a climate scientist, to know what's true and what's not.

Speaker A 00:02:59

So the knowledge is important to have.

Speaker A 00:03:03

The resources are equally important.

Speaker A 00:03:04

They don't have text, there's nothing in textbooks about it.

Speaker A 00:03:08

They don't have lessons, they don't have videos, they don't have lesson plans.

Speaker A 00:03:12

So that's what I'm building.

Speaker A 00:03:14

That's what the tools are.

Speaker A 00:03:15

And then finally, the support part is just a lot of times teachers can feel like they're just out in the wilderness with this.

Speaker A 00:03:21

And I'm trying to build a place where they can know that, that we're all out in the wilderness with this.

Speaker A 00:03:27

So you're, you're not alone, and there is a support system here for you.

Speaker A 00:03:31

And, and there's.

Speaker A 00:03:33

There's more.

Speaker A 00:03:33

I want to build on the support part, but I'm not quite there yet.

Speaker A 00:03:37

I'm trying to get the resources out first, but that's basically what it is.

Speaker A 00:03:41

And, and, and I'm.

Speaker A 00:03:44

I'm also trying to introduce them to advancements that I see in green technology, because a lot of people don't know this, but green tech is saving the world and nobody knows about it is something I say a lot.

Speaker A 00:03:57

So it's, It's.

Speaker A 00:03:58

I talk to green technology leaders all the time, and I have met so many people whose single piece of technology could solve climate change tomorrow if we had the political will to do so, but we don't.

Speaker A 00:04:12

And I think that part of the solution to that problem is education.

Speaker A 00:04:16

So that's why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Speaker B 00:04:19

And let's dive into.

Speaker B 00:04:21

Where did that passion come from?

Speaker B 00:04:23

Why is it this something that you kind of had to really sort of get going with and make such a big impact?

Speaker A 00:04:30

Yeah, that's a really great question.

Speaker A 00:04:32

Thanks.

Speaker A 00:04:33

I'd love to say that I was like this Greenpeace activist or something like that, but I really wasn't.

Speaker A 00:04:38

And, you know, I recycle at home.

Speaker A 00:04:41

And, you know, the environment itself is important to me because I feel like it's important for.

Speaker A 00:04:48

To pass it on to future generations.

Speaker A 00:04:51

But Planet Bonehead kind of came about by accident.

Speaker A 00:04:56

A friend of mine had an idea for a weird cartoon character and was like, hey, can you design a character named Bonehead?

Speaker A 00:05:03

And he had no idea what the character could be.

Speaker A 00:05:05

And he just had this idea for a funny character.

Speaker A 00:05:08

And I was like.

Speaker A 00:05:09

So I started.

Speaker A 00:05:10

I never designed a character before, so I started designing this weird character and.

Speaker A 00:05:16

And we were just making jokes about what this guy could do.

Speaker A 00:05:19

And next thing you knew at the time, we both had little kids.

Speaker A 00:05:23

My kids were just born.

Speaker A 00:05:26

My second one was just born.

Speaker A 00:05:27

My.

Speaker A 00:05:28

My older one was just like two or three.

Speaker A 00:05:31

And we realized, you know, we could make something educational and we could make something to teach kids about climate change and the environment.

Speaker A 00:05:38

And we.

Speaker A 00:05:39

I came up with Planet Bonehead and the Boneheads.

Speaker A 00:05:43

All these different characters that I came up with, they're.

Speaker A 00:05:45

They're special spies that are trying to save the world from the evil JP Rothbone and his ridiculous schemes to make money by destroying the planet.

Speaker A 00:05:53

Like, that's the only way he can do it.

Speaker A 00:05:55

And.

Speaker A 00:05:56

And so it just kind of morphed into that.

Speaker A 00:05:59

And my friend stopped working on it with me.

Speaker A 00:06:01

And I've just been doing it all these years.

Speaker A 00:06:05

I just made it in.

Speaker A 00:06:06

I, We.

Speaker A 00:06:07

I tried to make it into a TV show on Nickelodeon, but they didn't want anything that wasn't spongebob.

Speaker A 00:06:12

They only.

Speaker A 00:06:12

They didn't want education.

Speaker A 00:06:13

They just wanted entertainment.

Speaker A 00:06:15

But it was important that the educational part of this stayed true.

Speaker A 00:06:21

So I just decided to make the show myself.

Speaker A 00:06:24

I want to see it.

Speaker A 00:06:25

I want to see what this looks like.

Speaker A 00:06:26

And it really just morphed into that.

Speaker A 00:06:29

And the more I was doing it about, I want to say, six, seven years ago, I started talking to green technology people and learning about the technology they have.

Speaker A 00:06:39

And I realized this has to be to prepare kids for careers in these fields, because green technology companies, one of the big problems they have besides people not knowing or understanding green tech, is that a lot of people are retiring out of green tech.

Speaker A 00:06:55

But the kids coming into the field, there aren't enough of them and they're not well enough prepared.

Speaker A 00:07:02

So I'm trying to learn what they need kids to learn in school so that I can say to teachers, teach your kids this and so that they're prepared for these jobs.

Speaker A 00:07:12

And the other thing is that you ask a kid what they want to be when they grow up.

Speaker A 00:07:15

Very few of them even know that greentech exists.

Speaker A 00:07:19

So I want to introduce kids to fields that they don't know exist and that there's things out there that they could be when they grow up that they don't even know about, and that if they knew about them, they'd be like, that's amazing.

Speaker A 00:07:34

I want to be that.

Speaker A 00:07:36

So these are the driving factors.

Speaker A 00:07:39

There are a lot of them, but those are the main ones, is that I wanted to make sure the planet was fine for my kids when they grew up, which they are.

Speaker A 00:07:46

My older 1 is 21 now, and.

Speaker A 00:07:50

And that kids knew that they had these things they could be when they grew up and were ready to take on those roles.

Speaker A 00:07:57

So that's.

Speaker A 00:07:58

That's the mission.

Speaker B 00:07:59

Yeah.

Speaker B 00:07:59

And I think for me, that's a really, really important factor because you hear so much about we need to get more kids into STEM and we need to be doing these subjects, but there's no, there's no continual conversation.

Speaker B 00:08:10

You know, what does that look like?

Speaker B 00:08:11

You know what, I know what STEM is, but what does that practically look like in a job or in a field or in a.

Speaker B 00:08:17

Whatever.

Speaker B 00:08:17

So I can imagine, you know, the idea of green tech is sort of.

Speaker B 00:08:21

It's that and beyond even more so there's like, say, there's a myriad of conversations that aren't being brought into the schools, aren't being brought into the education world for children to even know that it's a possibility.

Speaker B 00:08:31

And I'm sure there are so many people that would be interested in understanding it and wanting to get involved.

Speaker B 00:08:36

But like I say, if they don't experience it or they're not understanding, if this is a way of life, then how can they possibly do that?

Speaker A 00:08:43

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Speaker A 00:08:47

You know, a part of it also stems from my personal journey as.

Speaker A 00:08:51

As a kid, I was an artist my entire life, and I was always drawing, always making art and stuff, and people like, oh, you're going to be an artist when you grow up.

Speaker A 00:09:01

But I also heard all the time that, you know, starving artists and you can't make a living as an artist and all this stuff.

Speaker A 00:09:08

So when I was in high school, my dad was a pilot and he was in the Air Force, and I loved airplanes and I.

Speaker A 00:09:15

And at the time I was really into drawing airplanes.

Speaker A 00:09:18

So one day in my senior year of high school or junior or whatever, they had a college fair day and I met these kids from Polytechnic University, and they were like, well, what do you like to do?

Speaker A 00:09:28

And I said, I like to draw airplanes.

Speaker A 00:09:30

And, well, if you come to our school, you could be an aerospace engineer and you could draw airplanes all day long.

Speaker A 00:09:35

And I was like, sign me up for that.

Speaker A 00:09:37

I want to draw airplanes all day long.

Speaker A 00:09:39

And I did four years of aerospace engineering school and I never drew a single airplane once.

Speaker A 00:09:43

And they don't do that so.

Speaker A 00:09:48

And I, you know, I'm good at science and math and I enjoy engineering, like to learn about it, but I didn't want to be an engineer.

Speaker A 00:09:59

You know, I'm good at like, explaining engineering stuff and I can comprehend it and I can talk about it, but I didn't want to be immersed in that all the time, all day long.

Speaker A 00:10:10

I wanted there to be a creative part of it for me.

Speaker A 00:10:13

And that in my senior year of college is when I learned that graphic design was a field.

Speaker A 00:10:19

Now I had never heard of graphic design as a, as a field to, because nobody told me, you know, and I switched majors, I switched schools and I went to another school and started over as like a sophomore in graphic design.

Speaker A 00:10:33

And then I started a career after that as a designer.

Speaker A 00:10:36

And I've been a web designer and a print designer and, and now a video designer and, and, and, and a lot of my clients ended up being these engineering clients because I spoke their language.

Speaker A 00:10:48

I could, I could explain their complex things to a lay audience that they were unable to explain it to.

Speaker A 00:10:56

And I was like, you know, I could do this for kids.

Speaker A 00:10:59

I could take these green tech things, these amazing programs and projects that, that are out there that could solve climate change, and I could explain it in a way that kids get it.

Speaker A 00:11:10

And when I explain it in a way that kids get it, guess what?

Speaker A 00:11:14

Grown ups get it too.

Speaker A 00:11:16

So the company's customers get it, the company's employees get it, the company's investors get it.

Speaker A 00:11:22

They understand it because I'm explaining it to kids.

Speaker A 00:11:25

So.

Speaker A 00:11:26

And kids aren't dumb.

Speaker A 00:11:27

You don't have to dumb it down.

Speaker A 00:11:28

You know, you can explain it for real, but you have to explain it step by step and carefully.

Speaker A 00:11:34

And that's something that a lot of engineer folk don't know how to do because they live it.

Speaker A 00:11:39

They're so good at it that when they talk about it, it just comes out as jargon, you know.

Speaker A 00:11:46

So, you know, that's part of the driving force for me as to why, you know, kids don't know that green tech exists.

Speaker A 00:11:52

Well, I was 21 years old when I found out that graphic design was a thing.

Speaker A 00:11:56

And I've made a life out of it since then, but if nobody had ever told me, I wouldn't have had this life.

Speaker A 00:12:02

So I'm like, well, what?

Speaker A 00:12:05

These kids don't need to wait till they're 21.

Speaker A 00:12:06

Let's tell them now, let's tell them now that this exists.

Speaker A 00:12:09

They won't all want to be in green tech, but Some of them will.

Speaker A 00:12:12

So let's do that.

Speaker A 00:12:13

That's, that's what I'm trying to do.

Speaker A 00:12:15

So, but if I may just add to your point, because you were, you were talking about the importance of stem, and I completely agree with you, but I like to say steam, actually, because the A in steam, it means art.

Speaker A 00:12:30

And to me personally, without the art part, the art part, without that, you have all of the technical jargon, but you don't have the humanity and the creativity.

Speaker A 00:12:42

The art is what makes it tangible for the masses.

Speaker A 00:12:45

The art is what makes it more exciting so that everybody wants to be a part of it.

Speaker A 00:12:51

The stem part is really important and, but the A in steam is what brings it into the fold of all of humanity for me personally.

Speaker A 00:13:02

So that's, that's just part of the Bobby thinking of how this all works.

Speaker B 00:13:09

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.

Speaker B 00:13:10

And just to sort of follow on from that, and I can't remember the name, it was some really large European project, but I remember them someone talking about it in a way that was, we need to advertise for some people to get involved in this project.

Speaker B 00:13:25

And we understand that the greatest scientists and the greatest mathematicians and physicists and all that kind of stuff are going to apply.

Speaker B 00:13:33

And we know they're going to be, you know, top of their field.

Speaker B 00:13:35

So they almost took that as a given and then they were like, but what we really want to know is, are these people involved in the arts?

Speaker B 00:13:45

Do they have other things around them?

Speaker B 00:13:47

Is there something which they do, which they can bring as a human being into this very kind of, of like, say, scientific area that we're going to be working on.

Speaker B 00:13:57

And I find that fascinating as well, because like you said, the, the human side is really, really key and actually having a broader sense of who you are as well as how you're going to explain it and how you're going to interact with people?

Speaker B 00:14:09

It takes a whole new different dimension.

Speaker B 00:14:11

And I, I love the fact that as you sort of been explaining already, the passions that you have and the understanding of what you have and being able to package that in a way that speaks to children and adults alike.

Speaker B 00:14:21

It's a talent which is beyond like, say, the resume that you may well see to begin with.

Speaker A 00:14:26

Yeah, yeah, I, I, that that's actually a wonderful approach.

Speaker A 00:14:32

I'm, I'm happy to hear that, that they would even consider that because a lot of times everybody is so focused on like, the, the skill set particular to this particular job.

Speaker A 00:14:44

But you need to have people be More well rounded.

Speaker A 00:14:47

You need to have all of the facets of life and humanity.

Speaker A 00:14:52

And I, I, and I think that's why we're, we sometimes feel like we're failing as a society, you know, because it's, it's, it's, it's not always about what's.

Speaker A 00:15:06

There's this thought that I have in my head and I'm trying to find the words for it, and I'll find it, but it's like, I want to say there's so much more to just being on budget, or there's so much more to just having all the right engineering skills.

Speaker A 00:15:25

Because if you don't understand how people work, then it's not going to matter.

Speaker A 00:15:30

You know what?

Speaker A 00:15:31

Here's a really good example.

Speaker A 00:15:32

This is what I'm trying to say.

Speaker A 00:15:33

I found it.

Speaker A 00:15:36

Think about.

Speaker A 00:15:38

There's a company that I like to use as an example all the time called Hughes Energy, and they have a technology called an autoclave.

Speaker A 00:15:46

Now this is Jules Verne technology.

Speaker A 00:15:49

This is something that's been around since the 1800s.

Speaker A 00:15:52

It's basically a giant metal container.

Speaker A 00:15:54

Container that you put stuff in and you apply steam and heat and pressure, temperature and pressure and, and just pressure.

Speaker A 00:16:03

And it turns garbage from a landfill into a powder that could be then used as an alternative fuel.

Speaker A 00:16:12

So it's, it's killing two birds with one stone.

Speaker A 00:16:14

It is solving two major problems.

Speaker A 00:16:16

One is it's using up and getting rid of garbage out of landfills because they are a terrible thing, landfills.

Speaker A 00:16:25

But the second thing it's doing is that it's then turning that into a clean, renewable fuel.

Speaker A 00:16:29

So a lot of times people will try to say we need to use like, here's this clean, renewable fuel and we try to mandate its use or we try to, we try to talk people into it because it's, well, it's more expensive, but it's better for the environment, or if we don't do this, then we're all going to die in five years.

Speaker A 00:16:53

You know, so we're either trying to use negative consequences to talk people into things and that doesn't generally work, or we're trying to use some kind of logic to do it that people don't want to hear because it doesn't fit into their everyday lives.

Speaker A 00:17:06

But what Hughes Energy tapped into that is always so fascinating to me is that they're not going against the grain with how human nature works.

Speaker A 00:17:18

We know we should be recycling more, yet we don't.

Speaker A 00:17:22

And even when we do recycle more, guess what?

Speaker A 00:17:25

We do we create more garbage?

Speaker A 00:17:28

We just, as a society, as a planet, as a species, we create garbage.

Speaker A 00:17:34

And we could mandate tomorrow that making garbage is illegal.

Speaker A 00:17:38

Well, the only thing that's going to do is turn every human being into a criminal because we make garbage.

Speaker A 00:17:43

It's what we do, and we can't help it.

Speaker A 00:17:46

And so instead of going against the grain of human nature, Hughes found a way to go with the grain, where we make a lot of garbage.

Speaker A 00:17:57

Let's figure out a way to take that garbage and turn it into something useful.

Speaker A 00:18:01

Now we can make more garbage.

Speaker A 00:18:03

And nobody has to feel bad because they threw something in the garbage.

Speaker A 00:18:06

Nobody has to feel like they're a loser.

Speaker A 00:18:08

Nobody has to feel like I'm the reason the planet's gonna blow up and.

Speaker A 00:18:11

And my kids are gonna have, you know, live underwater.

Speaker A 00:18:14

And, like, we just feel bad being people because, you know, oh, you use plastic straws.

Speaker A 00:18:21

Well, that's bad for the environment.

Speaker A 00:18:22

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Speaker A 00:18:24

No, you shouldn't.

Speaker A 00:18:25

It's just what we do.

Speaker A 00:18:27

It's what we do.

Speaker A 00:18:28

So instead of trying to change what we do, let's try to go along with what we do.

Speaker A 00:18:35

And to your point, the.

Speaker A 00:18:37

The way we end up being able to do that is not just by hiring people for jobs because they've got the right resume, but also hiring people for jobs because they understand humans.

Speaker A 00:18:49

They.

Speaker A 00:18:49

They understand art, they understand.

Speaker A 00:18:51

They understand culture.

Speaker A 00:18:52

They understand what drives us as people, not just what works technically.

Speaker A 00:18:58

Do you know what I mean?

Speaker B 00:19:00

It's.

Speaker A 00:19:00

It's.

Speaker A 00:19:00

It's.

Speaker A 00:19:01

It's really important, and it's something I'm trying to bake into Planet Bonehead.

Speaker A 00:19:06

It's not a lesson necessarily, but I keep it in the back of my mind with everything that I write that everything has to fit with what we as human beings can do, because it's just what we do.

Speaker A 00:19:20

Rather than make kids feel bad because they do things or their parents do things, you know, I don't want kids to go home and be like, daddy, you're doing this.

Speaker A 00:19:29

And that's bad because the daddy doesn't want to hear that 90% of the time, you know, and they're going to be like, what is this crap you're learning in school?

Speaker A 00:19:36

And.

Speaker A 00:19:36

And I don't need to talk people into being environmentalists.

Speaker A 00:19:41

I don't need to make people believe in climate change if they don't want to believe it.

Speaker A 00:19:46

I had that fight, and I'm done.

Speaker A 00:19:48

But certainly we can all agree that if we're going to keep making garbage Isn't it better to take that garbage and turn it into something useful than to just throw it in a landfill where it smells?

Speaker A 00:20:03

Can't we all agree on that?

Speaker A 00:20:05

You know what I mean?

Speaker A 00:20:07

Unless you own a landfill and you don't want that.

Speaker A 00:20:09

But that's a different story.

Speaker A 00:20:10

Not many people do.

Speaker B 00:20:12

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker A 00:20:13

Luckily, there's no big landfill organization, you know, but, you know, so, so that's.

Speaker A 00:20:20

That's what I'm trying to do.

Speaker B 00:20:22

I think it's a really interesting point because I was just sort of thinking about what happens in schools.

Speaker B 00:20:28

And, you know, you would think that we would be doing everything possible to support children, to understand about climate change, to understand about the society that they're living in.

Speaker B 00:20:38

It should be the.

Speaker B 00:20:39

The heart of everything.

Speaker B 00:20:40

And then the subject areas and all that sort of stuff are going to come in and they're going to help you do that.

Speaker B 00:20:45

But of course, what you said there was so important.

Speaker B 00:20:47

It's about, why are we doing this?

Speaker B 00:20:49

Who's making those decisions?

Speaker B 00:20:50

And of course, educators are often having to do what they're being told to do by governments, by systems, by organizations that are just sort of dictating it.

Speaker B 00:20:59

We're not educating our children in an organic way because we've got mass education, which we know is very outdated now.

Speaker B 00:21:06

And even with the obvious problems that we have is a world that we could start to fix or that we could at least start to have a focus on and be working together.

Speaker B 00:21:15

That isn't the aim of education at the moment, because it's still stuck, you know, 100, 200 years old, trying to do something different because it has to.

Speaker B 00:21:23

So I'm curious with that in mind, bearing what you just said in terms of trying to get this into the, into the hearts and minds of the right people, take us a little bit into the journey of how you've been able to sort of do that over a long period of time and build sustainable.

Speaker B 00:21:38

Like, say you want to give it, give it away, but that's great.

Speaker B 00:21:41

But if you give it away, then how does that get funded?

Speaker B 00:21:43

Because you still have to, you know, live your life and support your family.

Speaker B 00:21:47

And at the same time, like you say you've got organizations and companies that are actually trying to make a difference, but they're not able to get into the, into the hearts and minds of people necessarily that easily.

Speaker B 00:21:57

Because how do you get that message across when you've got big companies who are talking.

Speaker B 00:22:01

No, it still needs to look like this because we're still trying to make the money and you know, pay the tax dollars and, or not pay the tax dollars, depending on which companies they are.

Speaker B 00:22:09

So, yes, take us on that journey about how your sort of business is sort of morphed that.

Speaker B 00:22:13

And how.

Speaker B 00:22:14

Yeah.

Speaker B 00:22:14

How you're trying to sort of put all those pieces together to, to make a difference in a way that you say is more sustainable and working with everybody.

Speaker A 00:22:22

Sure.

Speaker A 00:22:23

Okay, I, I'll for, I, I could go in 15 directions from that, from that setup, but, and I appreciate it because there's so much that I have to say about all of it.

Speaker A 00:22:33

But for now I think I'll stick to the, just the, the business model part.

Speaker A 00:22:37

And, and, and if there's more you want to talk about, you can ask.

Speaker A 00:22:40

But I, you know, I, I made the show and we started sending it to distributors just at first.

Speaker A 00:22:51

When I made Planet Bonehead, it was a 30 minute show, you know, and there were no lesson plans, there were no all this stuff.

Speaker A 00:22:58

And it was really just environmental.

Speaker A 00:23:00

It wasn't even climate change specifically.

Speaker A 00:23:02

And so this was the next happy accident was that we sent it to distributors.

Speaker A 00:23:08

There's a company, Safari Montage and another one called Learn 360.

Speaker A 00:23:12

And at the time they were selling DVDs to schools and they since then switched to streaming.

Speaker A 00:23:18

So they're kind of like Netflix for schools now.

Speaker A 00:23:21

And it turned out that teachers liked it, teachers were using it, they were buying the DVDs and, and then when it switched to streaming, they were streaming.

Speaker A 00:23:28

And every quarter I get my reports about, you know, you got this many views and we sold this many packages and all this stuff.

Speaker A 00:23:34

So teachers were using it and I was very motivated to make more.

Speaker A 00:23:41

So but it wasn't enough royalties to live on, you know, so I was like, I got to figure out how to pay to make more and how to, you know, pay to keep the lights on and, and all the things.

Speaker A 00:23:55

Eating food is nice, we enjoy that.

Speaker A 00:23:57

So I was working on various models and, and one that I was working on was to give it away to teachers.

Speaker A 00:24:08

And well, I'll start with selling it to teachers.

Speaker A 00:24:11

That was like the first one that popped in my head.

Speaker A 00:24:13

I'm making a thing for teachers, let's sell it to teachers.

Speaker A 00:24:15

And I never liked that idea because even selling it to schools, I know that schools, sometimes they don't have the budgets for it.

Speaker A 00:24:23

So now the kids in these districts, they can have it, but the kids in these districts, yeah, they can't have it, you know, because whatever, the people there voted a budget down or they just don't have the budget for it, you know, and that didn't seem right to me.

Speaker A 00:24:37

I wanted this to be in as many classrooms as wanted it.

Speaker A 00:24:41

So I was like, I gotta find a better way.

Speaker A 00:24:43

And then I also was on Twitter one day and I saw teachers posting with hashtag clearthelist where they were essentially begging people to buy them notebooks and fruit box, fruit juice boxes and stuff for their classrooms.

Speaker A 00:24:55

And I was like, there's no way I'm letting teachers pay out of pocket for this when they don't even have pencils.

Speaker A 00:25:01

I would see them asking people to buy them pencils on Amazon.

Speaker A 00:25:05

And I was like annoyed.

Speaker A 00:25:06

So I was like this, this is just wrong.

Speaker A 00:25:08

I'm not, I'm not feeding into this model.

Speaker A 00:25:11

So I'm going to find another way.

Speaker A 00:25:13

So I was thinking of, you know, I'm also a business marketing and branding person.

Speaker A 00:25:19

So I was like, well, there are plenty of companies that care about their brand reputation, so maybe they would want to do like, they would want to support this for CSR or ESG reasons.

Speaker A 00:25:30

And I was going that route, but I was hitting some brick walls and it wasn't really a great fit for me personally because I don't.

Speaker A 00:25:37

These aren't the kind of companies I generally talk to.

Speaker A 00:25:39

Like large consumer brands aren't really my wheelhouse.

Speaker A 00:25:43

So then I started talking to green tech companies and realizing that they have some real problems in green tech.

Speaker A 00:25:51

One being that they're, they're coming up with amazing solutions, but they're the world's best kept secret.

Speaker A 00:25:58

You know, I said it earlier in the show, I'm going to say it again now.

Speaker A 00:26:00

Green tech is saving the world, but nobody knows about it.

Speaker A 00:26:04

And it's true, you would never know that we have all the solutions to climate change.

Speaker A 00:26:10

From watching the news on climate change, all we talk about is how is all the doom and gloom.

Speaker A 00:26:15

Although we hate this and we hate that and we can't do this and we can't do that and we all hate each other and the world's going to end and there's just nothing we can do about it because you can't make a profit fixing air, you know, so let's, let's just not, you know, so that's the general mentality, except that's the general mentality on the news in the real world, out in the green tech space, they've got all the solutions, we just don't know that they exist.

Speaker A 00:26:42

So I was like, well, I bet if we told kids they exist, they would grow up and not be as dumb as today's adults and forget.

Speaker A 00:26:51

So that's, I was like, I could make videos where I am creating stuff for green tech companies.

Speaker A 00:27:00

Part of Planet Bonehead.

Speaker A 00:27:01

There are videos that are the solution documentaries and each one focuses on different green tech solutions that exist.

Speaker A 00:27:09

You know, because I don't want to just scare kids with the problem.

Speaker A 00:27:12

I want to show them the solution.

Speaker A 00:27:14

I want to empower them to be part of the solution at home and at school right now.

Speaker A 00:27:18

And I want them to know that there are some great people out there who have the solution and they're working on it.

Speaker A 00:27:24

And they need you to grow up and come work with them, you know, and get them excited for that.

Speaker A 00:27:28

So, so that's one thing I'm doing for green tech is, is putting their projects into the programs in schools so that kids learn about it.

Speaker A 00:27:36

Now that helps green tech companies a couple of different ways.

Speaker A 00:27:39

They need these kids to grow up and work for them.

Speaker A 00:27:42

So let's train them in Steam now.

Speaker A 00:27:44

Let's get them ready so they understand what the solutions are and, and they can get to understand it.

Speaker A 00:27:50

And it's not just the kids that are good at science and math.

Speaker A 00:27:54

It's the artists, it's the lawyers, it's the numbers people, it's the, it's.

Speaker A 00:27:58

They need all the talents because green tech businesses are businesses, you know, it's, they're not just a bunch of engineers.

Speaker A 00:28:06

They've got all the people doing all the regular business stuff too.

Speaker A 00:28:10

They need salespeople, they need everything.

Speaker A 00:28:13

So they need kids to grow up and come join them and they need to hand the baton off to somebody.

Speaker A 00:28:19

And the other thing green tech needs to do is explain their stuff so that the grown ups today understand it.

Speaker A 00:28:25

Because when an engineer starts explaining engineering stuff, they sound very engineering.

Speaker A 00:28:31

And normal people go, they just, they don't understand it, you know, so they either don't understand the tech jargon or the other tool that a lot of green tech people have is they're trying to justify their technology by explaining the consequences of not using it.

Speaker A 00:28:50

And that's where the doom and gloom comes into the equation.

Speaker A 00:28:53

It's like if we don't do this thing that we have the solution for, this horrible stuff is going to happen.

Speaker A 00:29:00

And nobody wants to hear that because it's scary, you know, and you know, I have kids, lots of us have kids and we don't want to know that when they grow up there's not going to be enough food or I don't want to know that.

Speaker A 00:29:13

You know, and we just want to put our heads in the sand because that's easier than dealing.

Speaker A 00:29:18

So to come at them with all the doom and gloom consequences is not a viable solution.

Speaker A 00:29:23

To get green tech out into the mainstream and to talk engineering jargon is also not a good solution.

Speaker A 00:29:30

So I'm explaining it to kids.

Speaker A 00:29:32

You could use the videos to explain it to your investors, to your customers, and, and that's, so that's what I'm doing.

Speaker A 00:29:39

So it's, it's, it's important to me to have that because their support and funding is what makes creating the show possible.

Speaker A 00:29:50

Because then I can keep making it and I can give it to my distributors, but I can also put it on YouTube because there are teachers in New Jersey and Utah and Mississippi that don't have access to these programs.

Speaker A 00:30:05

So.

Speaker A 00:30:06

But they have access to YouTube, hopefully.

Speaker A 00:30:08

And they can certainly go on planetbonehead.com and access everything for free because I don't want teachers to pay for it out of pocket.

Speaker A 00:30:16

That just did not feel good to me.

Speaker A 00:30:19

So that's how I'm doing it.

Speaker A 00:30:20

And hopefully there are plenty of green tech companies that would want to step up and support this and get a video of their thing out there in the world so that it helps them, but it also helps our kids.

Speaker B 00:30:32

And I think that there are a couple of things that really strike me there.

Speaker B 00:30:35

One is the fact that you have to do things in a way that works for everybody.

Speaker B 00:30:40

And, and I think there are a lot of people in schools.

Speaker B 00:30:43

I often sort of think, do you know what?

Speaker B 00:30:45

It's, it's that sense of what I want to be able to do is I want to be able to have a whole new set of computers.

Speaker B 00:30:52

I want the kids to be able to give you the opportunity to, you know, to have a whole new project.

Speaker B 00:30:58

But we have to do it to fit it into math, so we have to fit it into science or we have to fit it into whatever else it has to be.

Speaker B 00:31:03

And then you think, but like you said, that's ridiculous because everything is a business or an organization, whether you're writing stuff down, whether you're doing the, the promotion, if you're front of camera, behind the camera, whatever it happens to be, there's some kind of, some kind of a working environment which has lots of different skill sets and understanding that if you can then use your skill and your passion in a, in an area, that then is going to be something you're also interested in as well.

Speaker B 00:31:28

So I'm interested in the environment, but I happen to be interested in the law, or I happen to be interested in marketing.

Speaker B 00:31:34

You have a place in there.

Speaker B 00:31:35

And that kind of melting pot is going to give you the best kind of pan for your buck, as it were.

Speaker B 00:31:41

Because what you want to be able to do is to kind of show up in the best possible way.

Speaker B 00:31:45

But I think also schools so often are kind of, well, we haven't got any money, we haven't got any budget.

Speaker B 00:31:49

We want it to be equitable, but we can't.

Speaker B 00:31:51

And rather than just saying, but we can't do this, I like what you've been able to sort of demonstrate as a business and that sort of thought process is what, how are we going to do that?

Speaker B 00:32:01

So the government aren't just going to give us the money.

Speaker B 00:32:04

We can't just ask the parents.

Speaker B 00:32:05

We can't just do this.

Speaker B 00:32:06

So how else can we do that?

Speaker B 00:32:08

Because our aim is to have this new project or these new set of computers or whatever that project thing.

Speaker B 00:32:13

And our aim happens to be, let's think out of the box, not because we're just having to do it, but because that's what we're all doing all the time, whether it's within our families, whether it's our businesses, whether it's education generally.

Speaker B 00:32:25

And at that point, we're all working as a community for a better environment, either immediately.

Speaker B 00:32:31

And the person I'm having a conversation with in front of me or within my local community or our school or our businesses, our state, our country, whatever that happens to be.

Speaker B 00:32:40

And then it kind of feels like we're actually all learning together.

Speaker B 00:32:42

And that's got to be a more successful dialogue and way of showing people how the future can be.

Speaker A 00:32:50

Yeah, that's.

Speaker A 00:32:51

That's true.

Speaker A 00:32:56

Yeah.

Speaker A 00:32:57

Because, you know.

Speaker A 00:32:59

Well, I.

Speaker A 00:33:00

Like I said, there's more to it than just the science, you know, So I can't change the curriculum in schools or anything like that.

Speaker A 00:33:11

So I have to figure out how to make it so that.

Speaker A 00:33:14

That the program that I'm making is aligned to the science standards and stuff, because the teachers need to justify why they're showing it.

Speaker A 00:33:23

So I have to kind of.

Speaker A 00:33:27

I have to find ways to blend in the other things.

Speaker A 00:33:33

So I've created.

Speaker A 00:33:35

So I mentioned the art being very important.

Speaker A 00:33:37

So, you know, here's something we haven't talked about is the.

Speaker A 00:33:40

The four parts of Planet Bonehead.

Speaker A 00:33:42

There are actually four aspects to it.

Speaker A 00:33:44

The first part is what I call Meet the Boneheads.

Speaker A 00:33:46

And it's kind of like the cartoon part.

Speaker A 00:33:48

It's the characters and it's the way that I introduce the topic without the doom and gloom.

Speaker A 00:33:53

It's just that there's funny things going on and, you know, and we get to the heart of it without it being scary, you know, and that part usually comes with an art lesson.

Speaker A 00:34:04

So, you know, we're learning about recycling.

Speaker A 00:34:06

So the first lesson plan in the, in the, in the unit is like an art collage where we can do something with recycling just to sort of take what we're learning about recycling and make something to show that I'm.

Speaker A 00:34:21

That.

Speaker A 00:34:22

That I'm learning this.

Speaker A 00:34:23

You know, it's, it's.

Speaker A 00:34:24

We're not solving climate change with the art project, but we're sort of internalizing the problem in.

Speaker A 00:34:30

In a way that every kid can see the problem and understand.

Speaker A 00:34:34

Like, you know, I see it this way and I see it that way.

Speaker A 00:34:38

So it's.

Speaker A 00:34:39

It's kind of like the human expression part.

Speaker A 00:34:42

The second part of the program is called it's your planet too.

Speaker A 00:34:45

This is where I get to the problem.

Speaker A 00:34:47

And, and I talk about, you know, these are the problems that we're having, and these are the issues that people across the world are dealing with or people in your hometown.

Speaker A 00:34:56

There was one about.

Speaker A 00:34:58

There's one I'm doing called water scarcity, the water scarcity unit.

Speaker A 00:35:02

And in it, I talk about the Flint, Michigan issue where they had lead in the water because of the infrastruct problems causing the pipes to break and the lead to come out and the water was tainted and poisoned.

Speaker A 00:35:14

So, you know, it's like, it could get a little scary, but I want them to know that, you know, this is a problem.

Speaker A 00:35:21

I'm not sugarcoating it, and there are consequences to these problems, but don't worry, because the solution is coming.

Speaker A 00:35:28

But in that problem documentary that comes along with a social justice lesson plan, and in the social justice lesson plan, I want them to understand that a lot of times these problems tend to affect people in marginalized communities more than they do the richer communities, you know, because the richer communities have money to mitigate it more or they have the money.

Speaker A 00:35:54

Oh, we're having a problem with our infrastructure and the water.

Speaker A 00:35:57

Let's just fix the infrastructure because they can, you know, but the marginalized communities don't have the budget for it.

Speaker A 00:36:02

So, oh, we're having a problem with the water.

Speaker A 00:36:04

Well, let's just drink the bad water and start dying because we don't have a choice, and it shouldn't be that way.

Speaker A 00:36:11

And I think when a kid sees that, kids just go that's dumb.

Speaker A 00:36:16

Why, why is it that way?

Speaker A 00:36:17

Everybody should have it good, you know, the good infrastructure.

Speaker A 00:36:23

It's just, it's common sense to them because they're not bogged down with the, the, the capital of it, you know, they're not bogged down with the, oh, well, you know, the profit margins and the blah, blah, blah.

Speaker A 00:36:34

They don't care.

Speaker A 00:36:35

That's stupid to them.

Speaker A 00:36:36

They're just like, no, I don't, I don't want to hear that.

Speaker A 00:36:38

That's ridiculous.

Speaker A 00:36:39

That kid shouldn't be drinking that water and those people shouldn't have died.

Speaker A 00:36:42

I don't want to know about this.

Speaker A 00:36:43

That's not the world I want to live in.

Speaker A 00:36:45

And guess what?

Speaker A 00:36:45

They're going to grow up and not want to live in that world.

Speaker A 00:36:48

And then there will be more people who don't want to live in that kind of a world than there are the people who think, well, there's nothing we can do.

Speaker A 00:36:54

And that's just how it is, is because we're teaching them solutions.

Speaker A 00:36:57

You know, my generation wasn't taught these solutions.

Speaker A 00:37:00

We just grew up.

Speaker A 00:37:01

And that's just how it is.

Speaker A 00:37:02

Gen X, deal with it.

Speaker A 00:37:04

So, so, you know, and here we are, and I'm just like, I don't, I don't like it.

Speaker A 00:37:09

So the social justice part is really important for that.

Speaker A 00:37:13

And there are social justice standards, so I can, I can align it to those.

Speaker A 00:37:17

The third part is the solution.

Speaker A 00:37:19

That's where the green tech comes into play, and that's where I'm talking about the actual companies that are doing amazing things and I'm showing them.

Speaker A 00:37:26

Hey, I know that first part was scary, but don't worry.

Speaker A 00:37:29

Look what we have.

Speaker A 00:37:30

We, it's not like we're coming up with ideas.

Speaker A 00:37:33

We have the solutions.

Speaker A 00:37:34

They exist.

Speaker A 00:37:35

We could implement them right now.

Speaker A 00:37:37

And when you grow up, you can make sure that we do, you know, and, and that part comes with a Steam engineering and design lesson plan where they get to not only learn about the technologies being built, but they get to design their own.

Speaker A 00:37:52

They can come up with drawings of their own.

Speaker A 00:37:54

They can make prototypes.

Speaker A 00:37:55

They could, could make, do experiments to show how it works.

Speaker A 00:37:59

And it's really important stuff.

Speaker A 00:38:02

And then the final part, I call you have the Power, is a music video.

Speaker A 00:38:06

And the music video and the song are all about things that kids can do right now, not when they grow up, but stuff they could do today.

Speaker A 00:38:13

You can go outside because there's an outside lesson plan, or inside if you don't have a good outside, but you can go outside and you can plant a garden.

Speaker A 00:38:22

You can go outside and do a recycling relay race where they learn about the different recycling parts and how easy it is to mix them up and screw up the entire recycling system.

Speaker A 00:38:32

Because once you're in the chaos of a relay race, you make mistakes, and this is how the mistakes get made.

Speaker A 00:38:38

So there's things that they can go do outside.

Speaker A 00:38:41

There's a water scavenger hunt where you go outside and when you know what to look for and you see all the ways that water is being wasted or all the ways that that plastic pollution is destroying the outside, go clean it up.

Speaker A 00:38:54

These are things they could do at home, these are things they could do at school, and they can do them right now as kids.

Speaker A 00:38:59

They don't have to wait till they grow up to be part of the solution.

Speaker A 00:39:02

So those are the four parts, you know, the introduction, the problem, the solution and the empowerment.

Speaker A 00:39:06

And, and, and every kid should have access to that, not just the ones in the communities whose budget passed.

Speaker A 00:39:16

That didn't seem right to me.

Speaker A 00:39:18

So that's why I'm selling this to green tech instead of to schools.

Speaker B 00:39:23

Yeah, it makes, it makes a really, really obvious kind of sense of why on earth am I is this not happening anyway?

Speaker B 00:39:32

Why on earth is this just not the way life is all the time?

Speaker B 00:39:36

But there's one thing that really struck me as you did that I love the fact that as you said, what we can do is we can get children to do something now.

Speaker B 00:39:45

And I think that empowerment and the ability that we're just not waiting for the future, it's actually something we can actually do in the here and now.

Speaker B 00:39:53

But I also sort of had that sort of step back because you sort of mentioned about wait until you hit the real world, but then the real world is like, say, about profit and it's about this and it's about the way the politics works and all that sort of stuff.

Speaker B 00:40:04

But the thing about making it equitable now so everybody's learning about it, it is that even if we haven't woken up and decided we could just do the whole thing differently, maybe there are enough people who decide that actually the green tech needs more support, they need more help to get their mission out there, they need more tax breaks.

Speaker B 00:40:22

That as a lawyer, as a politician, you're able to steer the conversation in such a way that we can make this just become an obvious snowball effect to help us.

Speaker B 00:40:31

Because like I say, the solutions are out there.

Speaker B 00:40:32

So whatever part of that journey you happen to, to end up in where you feel like you could make a difference.

Speaker B 00:40:39

Unless everybody's got access to that, then how are you going to get that one person who could be the, the person that makes the biggest sound or the biggest kind of snowball that's about to, to change the world in one fell swoop?

Speaker B 00:40:51

Because if they don't get the chance to understand it the same as someone else did, like say, whether it's a rich thing, a poor thing, whether it's where you live and those opportunities, then we're not doing what we need to do for everybody, let alone just those individual people.

Speaker A 00:41:08

You nailed it.

Speaker A 00:41:09

You said it better than I could say it, but I'll still say it.

Speaker A 00:41:16

Yeah, one more time.

Speaker A 00:41:20

Green tech is saving the world, but nobody knows about it.

Speaker A 00:41:24

And that's really the crux of the problem for me, too, is that I didn't want to sell this to teachers because I didn't want them to have to pay out of pocket.

Speaker A 00:41:34

But it also was annoying to me that the, that the entrepreneurs and the engineers out there who are taking their talents and their skills and applying it to something that could help humanity, they're the ones who are the most marginalized.

Speaker A 00:41:51

You know, it.

Speaker A 00:41:52

It.

Speaker A 00:41:52

They could have taken those talents and gone and worked for oil companies and made more money or gotten successful faster, you know, but they're not.

Speaker A 00:42:03

Instead, what they're doing is they're.

Speaker A 00:42:05

They're coming up with things that are.

Speaker A 00:42:07

That are better, not just so that they can make money, which they should, because they want to have a business and they want to be successful and they're allowed to, but they're making things that are better for humanity.

Speaker A 00:42:20

And that's what speaks to me personally is how do we make things that are better for everybody?

Speaker A 00:42:26

There's no.

Speaker A 00:42:27

I am not, Not a subscriber of the idea that if I'm getting mine, that means you have to get less.

Speaker A 00:42:34

I, I disavow that.

Speaker A 00:42:36

I reject that premise.

Speaker A 00:42:38

I think that is a false premise.

Speaker A 00:42:40

We have an economy on this planet that is far larger than it was 100 years ago.

Speaker A 00:42:46

Where did all those resources come from?

Speaker A 00:42:49

You know, where did all the resources that we have today as a, as a.

Speaker A 00:42:54

We have billions more people on this planet, but there's more food.

Speaker A 00:42:59

People are hungry.

Speaker A 00:43:00

Not because there isn't enough food, just because we don't distribute it well.

Speaker A 00:43:04

Right?

Speaker A 00:43:05

We don't.

Speaker A 00:43:06

People don't have enough water to drink, not because there isn't enough water, but we don't distribute it well because it doesn't seem, you know, it's not profitable enough to do that in a capitalistic society.

Speaker A 00:43:18

But when you have people who say, you know what?

Speaker A 00:43:20

I'm going to buck that.

Speaker A 00:43:21

I'm going to create something that is going to help everybody, I want to support that and this is my way of supporting it.

Speaker A 00:43:30

Because it would be easy for me to just make boring videos about the environment and penguins and polar bears and icebergs and stuff like that and just churn them out and send them to my distributors and make money with royalty checks.

Speaker A 00:43:47

I could do that, or I could make something that's actually going to help these kids, that's going to make them not just learn the science and the standards, but, but, but, but potentially change their lives.

Speaker A 00:44:00

I had no idea this was a thing.

Speaker A 00:44:03

I want to be that when I grow up.

Speaker A 00:44:05

I want to, I want to change the world.

Speaker A 00:44:07

I want to feel more empowered.

Speaker A 00:44:10

I want to go outside and fix this.

Speaker A 00:44:12

Today.

Speaker A 00:44:13

Watching something about a polar bear is nice, but what, they can't go outside and help a polar bear, you know what I mean?

Speaker A 00:44:20

Unless they don't live up there.

Speaker A 00:44:22

So, you know, but they can go outside and pick up plastic and they could learn about how all plastic that's outside ends up in the ocean.

Speaker A 00:44:29

All of it, every single piece will end up in the ocean if left there and given enough time, no matter where you live, it will end up in the ocean.

Speaker A 00:44:38

So, and that's a terrible thing.

Speaker A 00:44:40

So if you don't know about that, there's.

Speaker A 00:44:43

You feel, first of all, you probably don't care about it until it affects you personally.

Speaker A 00:44:49

But if you do learn about it, what, what good is learning about it?

Speaker A 00:44:54

Just as facts, if you can't then actually do something about it.

Speaker A 00:44:58

I don't want them to feel helpless.

Speaker A 00:45:00

And at the same time, I want to uplift this green tech community.

Speaker A 00:45:05

These people who are so talented, who said, I'm going to take this talent and I'm going to put it to use to help all people, all of humanity.

Speaker A 00:45:13

Not just so that I can make a quick buck, but so that I can do something that's actually going to help everybody that's alive now and everybody that will be alive tomorrow.

Speaker A 00:45:23

That's amazing to me.

Speaker A 00:45:25

What, what an incredible gift they're giving to people.

Speaker A 00:45:29

So how can I help them with that?

Speaker A 00:45:31

Well, nobody understands it.

Speaker A 00:45:33

Nobody knows what they're doing.

Speaker A 00:45:34

Nobody even knows they exist.

Speaker A 00:45:35

So let's get you out there.

Speaker A 00:45:37

Let's, let's put you in front of kids and their parents and their teachers and their communities and your customers and your investors.

Speaker A 00:45:44

Let's make something that will help put you out there because then everybody wins, you know, so that's, that's, how's that, that's what I'm trying to do.

Speaker B 00:45:55

That's it.

Speaker B 00:45:56

That's it in a nutshell.

Speaker B 00:45:57

That's exactly it.

Speaker B 00:45:59

So obviously the acronym FIRE is important to us here on the show.

Speaker B 00:46:02

And by that we mean feedback, inspiration, resilience and empowerment.

Speaker B 00:46:07

What is it that strikes you either word for word or it's a collective when you first come across that?

Speaker A 00:46:13

Well, the two that stand out to me the most are inspiration and empowerment, because those are two words that I use for my thing.

Speaker A 00:46:21

But, but, but I can give you all four.

Speaker A 00:46:23

That's actually, this is a good exercise for me.

Speaker A 00:46:26

The feedback part is important because I need the feedback from teachers.

Speaker A 00:46:31

I need feedback from green tech people.

Speaker A 00:46:33

I need to understand what their actual problems are so that I'm not just making cartoons that aren't actually helping anybody, you know, so it's important to me to know that if I'm making something that teachers could say, this is really good, but we could also use this, you know, or for, for green tech people to say, you know, this is solving this problem.

Speaker A 00:46:53

This problem.

Speaker A 00:46:53

But we also have this other problem.

Speaker A 00:46:55

Well, I didn't know that.

Speaker A 00:46:56

So let's solve that one too.

Speaker A 00:46:57

You know, inspiration is just, that's my go to word.

Speaker A 00:47:02

I'm, I call, you know, my, my show is called Planet Bonehead, but my company is called Fuel Blue and I call Fuel Blue the inspiration studio video because I am trying to educate and inspire people to just do better for, for everybody, you know, not.

Speaker A 00:47:18

I want everybody to do well for themselves.

Speaker A 00:47:20

You know, I don't want everybody to live like a monk so that, you know, everybody can do better than me.

Speaker A 00:47:24

You can't get sick enough to help sick people.

Speaker A 00:47:27

You, you have to be healthy to help sick people.

Speaker A 00:47:29

You have to be wealthy to help poor people.

Speaker A 00:47:32

So it's not about, you know, I'm going to do without and I'm gonna, I'm gonna live a minimalist lifestyle.

Speaker A 00:47:37

Do that if you want to want.

Speaker A 00:47:38

But you can live extravagantly and you could, you can make great things and you could be super successful.

Speaker A 00:47:44

But I want to work with the people who are doing that and helping people.

Speaker A 00:47:49

And to me, that's what is inspiring is, is when we can, we can lift all boats.

Speaker A 00:47:56

Resilience is.

Speaker A 00:47:58

I don't, I don't think of that word very often, but it, this is, this is Good for me.

Speaker A 00:48:02

Resilience, because, man, it's hard looking at the news today and waking up and doing this again tomorrow because some days you just want to go, is there even a point?

Speaker A 00:48:15

I feel like one man screaming into the wind of a hurricane some days.

Speaker A 00:48:21

And you feel like you need help.

Speaker A 00:48:24

You feel like you need support.

Speaker A 00:48:26

I want to help the green tech community, but I need the green tech community to want to help me, otherwise this isn't helping.

Speaker A 00:48:32

I want to help teachers and give this to them for free, but I need teachers to want to help me because if you're not going to use my program, then what am I making it for?

Speaker A 00:48:43

You know, so I need more of them to know about it and I need more of them to use it and to share it.

Speaker A 00:48:50

So the resilience part to me is more a message for myself to, to get up and do this again tomorrow, you know, because there are days that I just feel like I don't know why I'm doing this.

Speaker A 00:49:05

Everybody has that.

Speaker A 00:49:06

Everybody has the imposter syndrome.

Speaker A 00:49:08

Everybody has that feeling of who am I to, oh, I'm the guy fixing climate change.

Speaker A 00:49:12

That's me.

Speaker A 00:49:12

Oh, okay, great, you know, who am I?

Speaker A 00:49:16

But yet I am, you know, so I'm doing my part for it.

Speaker A 00:49:19

So the resilience to me is just to keep going.

Speaker A 00:49:23

And empowerment is a major part of Planet Bonehead.

Speaker A 00:49:27

We talked about it with the music videos.

Speaker A 00:49:29

I want kids to not only know about the problems and the solutions, but to feel empowered to do something about it right now while they're kids.

Speaker A 00:49:36

Because if they don't feel empowered now, what's the point of saying, when you grow up, you can fix this?

Speaker A 00:49:43

That's too far out there for a kid.

Speaker A 00:49:45

Being a grown up to a kid feels like 7 million years from now.

Speaker A 00:49:48

That's, you know, it only feels like yesterday to be a kid, but tomorrow for a kid feels like years and years and decades from now.

Speaker A 00:49:57

So they need to know that there's something that they have value now.

Speaker A 00:50:02

You know, that.

Speaker A 00:50:04

I never thought of it this way before.

Speaker A 00:50:06

A lot of people don't feel self worth.

Speaker A 00:50:11

They don't really know their innate value.

Speaker A 00:50:13

And you can't expect people to grow up, up and have self worth and have innate value if they weren't taught to value themselves when they are of the least value to society.

Speaker A 00:50:26

Children in society are generally nothing but burdens if you think about it.

Speaker A 00:50:31

We have to feed them, we have to do everything for them, we have to pay for them.

Speaker A 00:50:34

They, they contribute nothing, you know, and so they know that because we make sure they know that, you know, you know, and we need to stop that.

Speaker A 00:50:48

We need to let them know that they are extremely valuable and that their input and their ideas and their imaginations are what is driving humanity forward, because we generally tend to beat their imaginations out of them.

Speaker A 00:51:06

Stop daydreaming.

Speaker A 00:51:08

Stop imagining silly things.

Speaker A 00:51:11

Stop.

Speaker A 00:51:12

You can't be that when you grow up.

Speaker A 00:51:14

That's ridiculous.

Speaker A 00:51:15

You know, only one out of a million people is successful doing that.

Speaker A 00:51:18

You need to get a real job.

Speaker A 00:51:21

That's what we tell them, you know, and.

Speaker A 00:51:23

And we do it because we think we're being good to them.

Speaker A 00:51:25

I don't want to see you fail.

Speaker A 00:51:26

I don't want to see you poor.

Speaker A 00:51:28

I don't want to see you do drugs.

Speaker A 00:51:30

And, you know, I get it.

Speaker A 00:51:32

I know why we do it.

Speaker B 00:51:35

But.

Speaker A 00:51:35

It doesn't help them.

Speaker A 00:51:37

We need to keep them imagining.

Speaker A 00:51:39

We need to keep them daydreaming.

Speaker A 00:51:41

We need to keep them seeing solutions that they otherwise wouldn't know existed, because they're the ones that it comes from.

Speaker A 00:51:52

So I think empowerment is the most important one to me out of that list.

Speaker A 00:51:58

I'll leave it there because I could keep talking for an hour on empowerment.

Speaker B 00:52:03

I think it's fantastic.

Speaker B 00:52:04

And this, you know, I think this conversation today is really why this podcast exists, because I don't want to just talk about Key Stage 2, maths, and I don't want to talk about what you're going to do in grade five.

Speaker B 00:52:15

You know, we're talking about, like, say, children being children, wherever they are, at whatever stage they are giving them that empowerment, the here and now, seeing a future, whatever that happens to be, not just because we should, but because we have to and because the next generation is going to, you know, inherit the world and are already part of the world that we're creating, and we want them to be part of that conversation, and I think they'll certainly be the solution of it.

Speaker B 00:52:39

So, Bobby, thank you so much for being part of this conversation, for everything that you're doing and everything that you've been putting in place over this amount of time.

Speaker B 00:52:47

So just tell people where they can go, where they can find out what they need to find out for you.

Speaker A 00:52:53

Sure.

Speaker A 00:52:54

And thank you, Mark.

Speaker A 00:52:55

I appreciate you having me on today, though.

Speaker A 00:52:57

It.

Speaker A 00:52:57

This was a pleasure for anybody who's interested in the Planet Bonehead program, whether that you're a teacher or camp counselor or.

Speaker A 00:53:04

Or.

Speaker A 00:53:05

Or a parent, whatever, it doesn't matter.

Speaker A 00:53:07

Anybody who wants to learn more about the program or use it for their themselves and their kids or even just to learn about stuff.

Speaker A 00:53:13

It's@planetbonehead.com just just as it says it under my name here, planetbonehead.com so and for green tech people, you can go to planetbonehead.com GreenTech that's a great place to start.

Speaker A 00:53:29

Or you can, you can connect with me on LinkedIn.

Speaker A 00:53:32

That's where I do a lot of my green tech connections and talking and messaging is, is on LinkedIn is the best way to reach me.

Speaker A 00:53:39

And and if you go to planetponed.com GreenTech the LinkedIn link is right there.

Speaker A 00:53:43

So perfect.

Speaker B 00:53:44

And we'll have all these things on the show, notes and stuff as well.

Speaker B 00:53:47

So yeah, Bobby, thank you again.

Speaker B 00:53:48

Keep up the great work and I look forward to seeing how this continues and the positivity that you're making in the world.

Speaker B 00:53:55

So yeah, thanks so much indeed.

Speaker A 00:53:57

Me too.

Speaker A 00:53:58

Thank you.

Speaker B 00:54:00

Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.