Episode 110: Teaching About Climate Change with Bobby Donohue of Planet Bonehead
Bobby Donohue is the founder of Planet Bonehead, an innovative educational platform that revolutionizes the way climate change is taught in schools. With over 15 years of experience in educational content development, Bobby is dedicated to providing teachers with the knowledge resources and support they need to effectively educate young learners about environmental issues. His work focuses on empowering educators to inspire the next generation to tackle climate challenges with optimism and empowerment and prepare today's kids for tomorrow's careers in green tech and steam fields.
In this episode, Bobby tells us how he came up with Planet Bonehead, why he’s so focused on climate change, and why you got to keep taking that shot.
Topics Discussed:
How Planet Bonehead was initially a pitch to Cartoon Network
Success doesn’t usually come right away, nor does it have to
Jumping into the world of curriculum development
Resources mentioned:
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Read the transcript for this episode:
Welcome to Educator Forever, where we empower teachers to innovate education. Join us each week to hear stories of teachers expanding their impacts beyond the classroom and explore ways to reimagine teaching and learning.
Lily Jones
Bobby Donohue is the founder of Planet Bonehead, an innovative educational platform that revolutionizes the way climate change is taught in schools. With over 15 years of experience in educational content development, Bobby is dedicated to providing teachers with the knowledge resources and support they need to effectively educate young learners about environmental issues. His work focuses on empowering educators to inspire the next generation to tackle climate challenges with optimism and empowerment and prepare today's kids for tomorrow's careers in green tech and steam fields.
Welcome Bobby, so nice to have you here.
Bobby Donohue
Thank you. Appreciate it.
Lily Jones
If you could start us off by telling us a little bit about your professional journey,
Bobby Donohue
Sure that's a really long story, so I'll tell you the recent version. Basically, I've had a lot of jobs in my life. I've had I've worn a lot of hats, and they've all been my job like I've had a lot of variations to my business, but a couple of things have been the same throughout it's always been for me about inspiration, and education, whether I'm teaching entrepreneurs how to do their branding better, or teaching spiritual artists how to tap into their inner authenticity. But the the other thing that's always been there has been planet own head. For me, I've been doing it now for over 15 years, pretty much non-stop. So it's, it's just been this, this, this driving force to it started where I just wanted to make cartoons and it turned into this thing where I realized I really care about this, and I can use my skills to help teachers teach kids about climate change, so that just became the driving force for it, and it's just been growing and ever since, that's fantastic.
Lily Jones
And if you could tell us a little bit about Planet Bonehead, and I'm particularly curious about why you chose to focus on climate change.
Bobby Donohue
Yeah, so Planet Bonehead started a long time ago with some friends, where it was just going to be like this website for people to rant about climate change. And then it turned into this thing. We wanted to make a cartoon and bring it to like Cartoon Network, but they only wanted SpongeBob stuff. They didn't want anything educational. And then I was like, let's just make the show ourselves, and I'm the artist behind the whole thing. So I was doing the cartoons and the music and the voices and that video editing, and we were able to make a program that we got into schools through distributors like Safari montage and Learn 360 this is going back a little over 10 years now, and it was basically about the environment at first, you know, but then the last of the people that were working on it with me left almost 10 years ago now, and it's just been me ever since. And I have an engineering background, and I started to learn a lot about green technology. So I and what I learned was that green tech is saving the world, and nobody knows about it. Like, like, I talked to green tech CEOs, and they're telling me how if we had this one thing going, and I can tell you about, like, 15 one things, that if we going, we could fix everything tomorrow, and none of them are going. So it's kind of annoying to me to know about this. So I was like, You know what? Telling grown ups about it isn't doing anything, so I'm going to tell kids about it, and when they grow up, at least now, they won’t have an excuse to not do anything.
Lily Jones
Yeah, smart move.
Bobby Donohue
That plus the engineering stuff and the green stuff, green tech stuff, and the optimism. It's just that's all me, you know. So I was just like, let me, let me. So I transitioned to Planet Bonehead to be very climate change-focused. How do you teach kids about climate change and global warming without scaring the crap out of them? You know, it's like, it's hard, so there's no doom and gloom in it. It's all optimism and it's all empowerment, and it's all stuff that they can do right now at home and at school to make a difference.
Lily Jones
Fantastic. I love that. And I love the focus on like action. And I get that of going to kids rather than grown-ups when it comes to taking action or, you know, having a different perspective. And so I appreciate starting there, and like growing it from there. And so I'm curious you can tell us a little bit more about what does Planet Bonehead offer for teachers.
Bobby Donohue
Sure. So that was the one thing I realized, is that it's not just going to be enough to make videos for kids. One thing I learned is that teachers are lacking three things in droves. They're lacking the knowledge, they're lacking resources and they're lacking support. So I'll go through them
Lily Jones
And money.
Bobby Donohue
Well, money, I'm actually trying to help them with, because I wanted to make Planet Bonehead just free. And Companies to pay for it, but that has been very difficult for me to get off the ground. So I'm actually doing it where teachers in schools are going to pay for it, but I'm starting a founding member program for just $4 a month. That was great. I love it. I'm just like, Look, I know not everybody can do that, but a lot of them can. Yeah, that's great. And if they have to do it out of pocket, at least it's not like $800 a year or something absolutely, you know, it's also right. But back to the main three, the knowledge is that there's so much misinformation and disinformation and climate change is a hoax and all of this stuff that a lot of teachers don't even know what's real and what's not, what's myth and what's fact, you know. So, so I'm creating resources specifically for teachers, not even stuff for them to show in the class, but stuff for teachers to learn the truth about climate change and what and also how, to then take that knowledge and impart it upon children. Because we can talk about stuff on the reality like, Oh, if this happens, this is going to happen, and it's bad, we're all going to die. But you can't talk like that to kids. So how do you talk to kids about this? So that's knowledge resources. Is the classroom units, the videos and the lesson plans, the stuff that teachers can take and now use in the classroom with their students. And that stuff I've been working on for years, there's already stuff up on the website. And in fact, the foundational unit, the ocean plastic unit, is just 100% free. You could go to planetbonehead.com right now, not even log in or anything, and it's all there 100%. So I invite any teacher to go do that. The third is support. I'm sure that there are lots of teachers that, especially in the United States, that just feel isolated and alone and abandoned when it comes to they want to teach kids about this, but maybe their administration isn't helping them. Maybe parents in the community don't want to know about it. Maybe they're just amongst other teachers that also don't know anything, and so they're all just floundering around together. So I'm creating programs to bring us all together in digital conferences and have them learn directly from green tech experts and climate change experts, cool knowledge resources and support. That's what Planet Bonehead is, in a nutshell.
Lily Jones
That's fantastic, and I think you're exactly right that teachers do want to teach about climate change, and many of them do not have the expertise or the time to figure it all out. So providing the support is so needed, and saying like and providing the teacher training, I think too, because teachers, especially multiple subject teachers, are expected to know so many different things and so as much as we can support teachers with a great knowledge base, then I think that, you know, gets these things taught in the classroom.
Bobby Donohue
Yeah,
Lily Jones
So I know that your approach integrates other subject areas as well. And so I would love to hear more about that.
Bobby Donohue
Yeah, I'm trying to, I like you just said, especially for grades three to five, which is the main focus of the classroom. Units for Planet Bonehead right now, these teachers are multi-subject teachers, you know. So it's not just the high school science teacher, per se. So I'm trying to bring it into where teachers who might focus on other subjects can also use plan upon it. For example, every unit has an art lesson so they could, they could bring Planet Bonehead into art class. And every unit has a social justice lesson, where we not only learn the facts and the science and the engineering and stuff behind it, but also how does this affect people? And, you know, and trying to teach them the idea of equity through climate change again, without scaring the pants off of them.
Lily Jones
I'm balanced.
Bobby Donohue
That's what I'm trying to do. I'm also trying to figure out how to bring it more into perhaps literature classes. I haven't got everything figured out yet. It's just me down here with my dogs putting this thing together and but we're getting there.
Lily Jones
That's awesome. I love that, and I love curriculum. It is a major part of Educator Forever and of my life, leaving the classroom and focusing on curriculum. And I think that the best curriculum is integrated, like life is integrated, and it's not just science and it's not just climate change, and there are many different ways to help make sense of the world when we bring subject areas together. So I really love that focus. Yeah, you really can't learn or teach this stuff. It's not done in a vacuum. It everything is integrated and applies to every other part of life, absolutely. And so going back a little bit to the teacher support and the teacher education, I know you're developing this teacher learning center for educators. Can you tell us about that?
Bobby Donohue
Sure. If it's okay, I'm gonna tell you about two things. Yeah, please. One is the teacher learning center. So this is going to be., My goal for it is to create courses for teachers. So for example, the first one that's going to come out as quickly as I can this month or next month, if possible, is going to be climate change. 101, for teachers. What are the myths and the facts? What? What? What is climate change? What's the difference between climate and weather? Just the things that are confusing to the everyday people that you know, let's face it, teachers, have a lot on their plate. They're probably not climate scientists. They're probably not experts on this, and we can't expect them to suddenly be so I at least want them to learn the basics. And then other courses that I want to bring into play are going to be like how to integrate social justice lessons into this how to how to approach these topics carefully with children, how to answer their questions, when, when, when they ask, Are we all going to die? Mrs. Baker, you know, it's like answer that question. So these are the kinds of things that I want to do. So the teacher learning center is going to be professional development content that they could self-direct. They could just go in there and do it at their own pace. I want to give certifications this way. They can at least say that they, you know, they passed the course, and they're certified by Planet Bonehead for whatever that's worth at the moment. But the other thing that I want to do. I mentioned it briefly a moment ago. I'm calling it Planet Symposium. So that's going to be the panel of experts. So I'm thinking seasonally, at least once a year. I want to launch the first one in the spring of 2025. I would like to have a panel of experts, climate change experts, NASA scientists. I already have the people in mind. I just got to tell them they're doing this, sign them up, making these contacts for the better part of a decade now, getting a phone call. So my hope is, who do I pick out of the people that are going to want to do this? Not Who am I going to get to do this? But I want teachers to be able to sit in on these panels or watch them later if they missed it, live, and be able to ask questions, be able to be involved in the discussion in a perfect world in the future, I would like to hold these things in person, you know, but I don't know how to do that right off the bat, so, yeah, start digitally and let it grow from there. But those are the two things, because I do think the Planet Bonehead classroom units, while being the core of what I'm making, without the support system for teachers themselves, they might not really know what to do with it.
Lily Jones
Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's really cool. And I like the idea of the symposium too, because getting people together creates a different type of learning experience. You know, being able to ask questions and learn from experts and learn from each other, and even just connect with other teachers who are doing this work, I think can be so valuable, absolutely. So I love hearing about Planet Bonehead, and I want to shift gears a little bit to hear a little bit more about the experience of creating Planet Bonehead. So a lot of our listeners are educators who are thinking about maybe leaving the classroom, maybe doing something in addition to teaching, maybe starting their own business or organization. And so I'd love for you to reflect on kind of what you've learned about yourself, or anything you want to share about through the process of starting Planet Bonehead.
Bobby Donohue
Sure, I'd be happy to. One thing I've learned is that for me, and I believe for anybody, you have to do work on a daily basis that is reflective of your authentic self, if you're just doing work because you feel like I have to do this or I'm stuck doing this, that's a that's an uncomfortable place to be. Now, I understand the realities of living on planet Earth, and we have bills to pay and stuff like that. So a lot of times we have a job where we have to do this thing because we need the paycheck, but we all have the ability to do that job and be forward thinking to where I would prefer to be in the near or even the distant future. So we should all be thinking about like, Where, where are my talents best serving the people around me? And how do I best serve the world. And when I say serve the world, I don't mean we all have to serve a global audience. I mean we have to figure out who our particular world is. That could be a very small group of clients, that could be your own school, that could be your community, that could literally be the world. For me, it's teachers in the United States, that's where I'm starting my thing, and not only all of the teachers, but like teachers in grades three to five in the United States, it's like I had to start somewhere. And the reason I picked that is not because I have this passion for third grade teachers, but because I wish I could say my mom was a teacher, and I always was this. She wasn't. My father in law was a teacher, and I've always respected teachers, but that's not the driving force for me. The driving force is really the program and while I have a respect for the audience that's going to use the program. It's really the work that I'm doing is I'm always trying to figure out, how do I turn this into something that is truly, authentically me? Because that is going to be what's best for the people I'm making it for, right? I love that around you know, a lot of times people think like, what do they need the most? I'll just make that you end up not liking that. You have to figure out, what is it that I can do that's going to have the most value for people, and then let those people find you. I love that absolutely.
Lily Jones
Yeah, that's fantastic.
Bobby Donohue
And I think eventually...
Lily Jones
yeah, yeah, right. I mean, like, that's so empowering. And I think that it comes across, right? Like, no, if we're creating something that's just to meet a need that we don't particularly really feel passionate about. No one like people aren't going to resonate with it in the same way that, if you're creating something from a place of passion and purpose, and what you feel like you really feel aligned with creating. And so I love that encouragement to kind of tune into that. And I also appreciate that you said, like, it doesn't have to be right now. You know, maybe you're not quitting your day job today and starting something new, but giving yourself that opportunity to see the possibilities and to really think about, like, what it would look like and how to get there is the first step.
Bobby Donohue
Yeah. And so if I could just add one thing, I saw something just today that made me feel so much better about being me, because, having said all of that, right, a lot of times, I've been doing this a long time, and I've been like taking my shot at it 100 times, and like, this shot would miss, and this shot would Miss and, and I just feel like, what is this ever going to work, you know? And, and somebody posted on LinkedIn just today that like, 92% of people in the world, like, are holding the bow and arrow and trying to aim, but never fire the arrow. You know, they just never fired. Yeah, yeah. They can never get the aiming down. And then, like, 7% of people take one shot and it misses, and they go, forget it. You know, 1% of people just keep taking shot after shot after shot after shot after shot after shot until it hits the bullseye. And I feel like I'm in that 1% of people I just haven't hit the bullseye.
Lily Jones
Yes, absolutely. I mean, yeah, go ahead.
Bobby Donohue
So Well, I'll let you finish the thought, if you'd like. But what I'm trying to say is that to those people who it's not right now, or I've already tried it, it didn't work, try again. You know, if it's not right now, give it a little time. \
Lily Jones
Yes, absolutely. I mean, I'm shaking my head so hard because I resonate with all of that so much, and I think it's courageous and inspiring to keep taking the shots. And I see this a lot, you know, working with educators who are trying to start their own thing and taking risks. And I've definitely experienced starting a business and being like, well, a lot of things aren't working, right? Like, we're trying things, they're not working, they're not working, they're not working. And there are always opportunities to give up. But I think the magic really happens when you don't you know, when you realize that it's not about that it's not about necessarily, like Hitting the Bullseye Exactly. It's about learning through the process, and like betting on yourself and being resilient and building that muscle as you go along. And I think it's just something to celebrate and also normalize. You know, people have a rosy idea of like, okay, I have a great idea. I'm gonna go out there and it's gonna perfectly work out. It's like, yeah, probably not, right. Maybe eventually, I think that every time. Yeah. But I think the adjustment is, like, where the magic happens, you know, listening to other people, like, Okay, why didn't you want to buy this thing? Or, you know, what wasn't working right for you in this product, or whatever it might be, and then making those adjustments rather than just stopping.
Bobby Donohue
That's it. Life is a journey we have to you got to wake up tomorrow and do the thing, so you may as well keep trying. You know, otherwise you just going to be sitting around,
Lily Jones
Yeah, and I think it really goes back to what you share, though, like trying in a way that is you and represent something you feel passionate about and want to do. Because, yeah, if I was trying to go out there and, like, you know, cell, Tupperware, right? Like I don't care. So it's like, I don't have that motivation. I don't want to, like, fight through the process and build that resiliency around that topic. And so I think that what you shared around, kind of like mission and vision and being you is what. It allows people to really go forward in hard times, like leaning into that part
Bobby Donohue
Exactly.
Lily Jones
Awesome. Well, it was so, so nice talking with you, Bobby, and I love hearing about your journey and everything you're creating at Planet Bonehead. Can you tell people how they can connect with you?
Bobby Donohue
The best way to connect with me is on LinkedIn. Right there's a contact form on my website at PlanetBonehead.com I would invite all teachers to go visit Planetbonehead.com and just avail yourself of what's there. Whether you join or not is up to you. If you want to contact me, there is a contact form there, and I'll get that. But if you want to connect with me and actually talk, the best way is on my LinkedIn profile, email goes to spam and phone calls get ignored. So
Lily Jones
I understand.
Bobby Donohue
I don't know who this is. I know, right? So that's, that's just the realities of now, but yeah, that's, that's how I'm Bobby Donohue on LinkedIn.
Lily Jones
Wonderful. We'll put the link in the show notes as well. All right. Thanks so much, Bobby.
Bobby Donohue
Thank you. Appreciate you having me on today. Thank you so much.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai