Online Education Resources
Explore these videos and podcasts created by educators and naturalists on your favorite topics.
The R.L. McGregor Herbarium: A Botanical Resource for the Great Plains (Kansas University)
Craig Freeman, curator at KU’s McGregor Herbarium provides an overview of the collection’s history and holdings, efforts to mobilize specimen data, and contributions to various botanical initiatives and resources, with an emphasis on the Flora of North America project. Craig is also a senior scientist at the Kansas Biological Survey & Center for Ecological Research. The R.L. McGregor Herbarium was established in 1866 and today is among the largest herbaria documenting the floristic diversity of the central North American grasslands.
The Patterns Method of Plant Identification –
Thomas Elpel authored the popular “Botany in a Day” book that teaches plant family identification based on similarities in plants. This method is very helpful to narrow down the possibilities when learning to identify native plants.
Botany Basics– How to Identify Different Plant Species Around You
A fast moving presentation on the vocabulary of the plant world – knowing these terms will give you a better understanding of plants in their habitats and their strategies for a survival.
Produced by The Great Courses.
Botanical Science for Beginners
A 1.50 hour webinar that is that breaks down in every day language, botanical systems that botanists study to see and understand the fascinating and complex Plant Kingdom. Presented by James Stevenson, this is a fast moving talk with lots of information you can use.
Kansas Canopy Podcast – Kansas Forest Service
Episodes cover topics such as Champion Trees, foraging wild fruits, impacts of invasive plants on pollinators, fire safety.
Flatlander Podcast – Kansas Wildlife and Parks & Kansas Wildlife Federation
#27 Native Plants
#13 Monarchs
#35 Kansas Wetlands Education Center
The Best Biome – Grassland Groupies
Nicole and Rachel, two prairie biologists, make the ever-growing argument for why grasslands are the world’s best biome, as they discuss soil microbes, native gardens and other topics related to grasslands.
Nature Revisited – Noorden Productions – “…. nature is not a place one goes to, but rather a place one is already a part of – that We Are Nature.”.
#87 Benjamin Vogt – Prairie Up
#48 Heather Holm – Native Bees
#41 Neil Diboll – Native Plants: A Cultural Shift
#37 Doug Tallamy – The Nature of Oaks
Native Plant Podcast – Thought leaders and educators discuss why how to bring native plants into your landscape
Heather Holm – Native Bees and the plants they forage.
Dr. Doug Tallamy – The Nature of Oaks
Many other episodes by top educators and authors
Ologies Podcast – Allie Ward, Science Correspondent
Lydia Jennings – Indigenous Pedology (Soil Science)
Robin Wall Kimmerer – Bryology (Moss)
Amy Christianson – Indigenous Fire Ecology
Interviews with experts in the field of pollination, invertebrates, evolution, invasive plants and more.
A Way to Garden – with Margaret Roach
Sam Hoadley – Gardening with Sedges
Jim Nardi – World of Trees and the Hidden Company that Trees Keep
Uli Lorimer – Eco Cleanup of garden spaces
