Download the Wild Florida pdf here.

From time to time I teach at Eckerd College as part of their OLLI program. It’s a not-for-credit program geared towards adults. One of the things I enjoy the most about OLLI is that my “students” want to be there; they aren’t there for a degree or a grade. They choose which classes they want to take based solely on what piques their interest, not because they’re trying to graduate. These classes are supposed be fun for them, and so the people who come to my classes either love Florida as much as I do or they want to learn more about Florida, which makes the classes fun for me (not that they aren’t fun already because, hey, I’m getting paid to talk about Florida, which is my favorite subject ever). Creating these courses also gives me an excuse to do more research about parts of Florida that catch my attention (Here’s a link to the summer courses at OLLI).

This week I’ll give a 90-minute talk called Wild Florida. I’m in love with the wild bits of Florida, which is more of it than you’d think. Working on the materials for this class gave me an idea for a book, and, hopefully, my editor will agree. The idea for the book and the idea for the course come from the same place: When I speak at OLLI, so many of the people who attend are not Florida natives and they absolutely delight in learning about the state — not only the weird stuff, which really isn’t what I do anyway, but the wonderful. The spectacular. And so I created this class to give people more insight into exactly how spectacular wild Florida is. One example is Archbold Station, one of the last bastions of safety for the scrub jay, the indigo snake and others. And if you want to know more, well, hey, you’ll have to come to one of my lectures or buy my next book. Until then, here’s a cool little movie a bunch of Florida kids made about the scrub jay.