Naomi Meredith [00:00:00]:

When you’re looking for nonfiction books for your STEM classroom, are you frustrated that you can’t always find exactly what you’re looking for? Either the content is great, but it’s not quite the right level for your students, or maybe it is actually a great book, but the visuals are like, eh, boring. Just like any other nonfiction book that you’ve used in your classroom. Q in Rachel Ignotowski, who is the special guest for this episode, to fill in that void. Rachel Ignotovsky is a New York Times bestselling author, illustrator and designer. Rachel and her work have been featured in many print and online media sources such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Scientific American Science Friday, Brain Pickings and more. She is the author of many amazing works such as Women in Science, The History of the Computer, and her newest book, What’s Inside of a Caterpillar Cocoon. There are so many other titles that she has authored, so make sure to go and check those out. She is a graduate of Tyler School of Arts graphic design program. Her work is so unique with the artwork and the way the visuals are displayed in her books, you just want to stare at them for hours, but there’s also so much learning that goes behind it. Likewise, her work has so much research within her books, so they are definitely things that you can use in your classroom to enhance your curriculum. I thoroughly enjoyed Rachel’s passion for designing and creating, but also supporting education through her work and the underlying themes that each of her books have. Rachel was such a delightful guest to have on this show and I know that you are also going to hear that same passion in what she does and just feel so much lighter after listening to this episode. I can’t wait for you to hear this interview and I know that you are going to be inspired just as I was by listening to our conversation. Well, thank you, Rachel, so much for being here. We were talking a little bit before we started recording and when you guys check out the video, her background is just so sweet and it almost looks fake because it’s so perfect and cute. She has this beautiful red chair and you’re going to tell us in a second. There’s some history about this red chair and like this cute pompom background. So this is like one of the cutest backgrounds I’ve ever seen.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:03:20]:

You know, what? I’m just going to say it again. Pompoms, they go a long way. They’re worth the investment.

Naomi Meredith [00:03:26]:

Really? Oh, yeah.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:03:29]:

And this red chair, I’ve actually been sitting my little butt in it and writing books right here in this red chair since 2016. And this chair has survived like three different moves across the country. And yeah, so when everything started to be more on, zoom and video started being so much more important for how we do interviews, I’m like, you know what? Let me take my red chair. Let me put it up against the wall. Let me string up some pompoms, add some class. And it’s so perfect. It’s nothing but compliment city. So thank you.

Naomi Meredith [00:04:06]:

It’s so perfect. And this is a teacher audience. Oh, yeah. Every teacher is like, oh my God. Some teachers be like, I have those pompoms when they see it.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:04:16]:

Like $3 from Target investment spent. Worth it.

Naomi Meredith [00:04:21]:

Perfect. I love it. Well, aside from the pompoms. And it goes into your background a bit, but I would love to hear more about yourself and your background and how your experiences led you into children’s STEM literature. I read about me in your first book that you created. But for those of us who haven’t heard about you, tell us more about yourself.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:04:47]:

Well, when I first graduated from college now this is all the way back in 2011. My first job was in Kansas City, Missouri. So I moved across the country all the way from New Jersey to Kansas City, Missouri. And the other young people that I made friends with, they actually were all from all over the country, and they moved to Kansas City, Missouri to be part of Teach for America. So I was there working for Hallmark greeting cards, kind of drawing happy birthday cards and little flowers and cakes all day. And all of my friends, they were in some of the most underserved communities that are in our country, working, stressed out, trying to basically find resources for their classrooms all day. And you know how it is when you’re a teacher, you spend a lot of your own money. And a lot of my friends were actually doing lesson plans for multiple subjects at a time. So they were like, I’m teaching English, math, and science all at once. So just hearing the needs that my friends had, I was like, you know, I can make some art. So I started making art about topics that I personally thought were really interesting, but also really having my friends in mind of what are some things that they could just literally throw in a PowerPoint or put on the wall and would be something that they could use in both of their classrooms. English and science. English and mathematics, yes. And so it really started from that place. And I was so lucky that the rest of sort of like the online community, the science community, kind of caught wind of the work I was doing. So I started getting freelance. I was selling posters online, and I was pretty much, in just a couple of years, able to quit my job at Hallmark and go full time making science communication and these infographics that teachers could use. All of that led to my first book, which was Women in Science.

Naomi Meredith [00:06:48]:

I have it right here.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:06:49]:

Yes. Now, that book right there that really came out of this necessity, my friends were all like, we don’t have a lot of resources in our classrooms to talk about women in history, women in science. Now, remember, this is back in 2014, 2013, the same time I was reading a lot about the U.S. Census and the huge gender gap that was in STEM around 2010. And all the information, all the sort of kind of analyzing the data that came in was coming out around that time in 2013, 2014. And the gender gap was just women were graduating in the sciences, but then they weren’t getting placed in positions or high level positions. And there was just huge gender gap between women who are graduating with STEM degrees and those getting jobs. And hearing my friends talk about their lack of resources, I was like, you know what? It sounds like this is something that I can actually make. And instead of just complaining that these books didn’t exist and that these resources didn’t exist, I started making those resources. So I started creating posters about women in science, always knowing that eventually, I hope this would become a book. And the posters started getting used in classrooms and hung up in laboratories by professional scientists. I got this email being, oh, like, I’m a chemist, and I put up the poster of Rosalind Franklin in my cubicle. And now all of my colleagues come and ask me about Rosalind Franklin, and I could tell them that she’s actually the woman who discovered the double helix. And it was just these moments were happening. And eventually publishers knocked on my door, and I was able to publish my very first book. And now it’s been translated into 25 different languages used in classrooms around the world, and it was on the New York Times bestseller list for over two years.

Naomi Meredith [00:08:36]:

Yeah, congratulations. That’s an amazing accomplishment, and you definitely should be honored for that because I have so many chills right now with you mean when you’re reading your bio, you don’t know that whole story in your book? That’s beautiful. But I love how all of your things are very education and teacher focused and bringing awareness and research based, which is such a cool way. And the illustrations are absolutely beautiful, every single one. I’m sure you have a favorite, which we can ask at the end, which are your favorite? You probably don’t have a favorite, but I love how it is such a need. And instead of sitting there with that research, because I was reading that too, getting my Master’s in STEM leadership with that huge gap, instead of like, oh, okay, that’s sad. You actually are taking action, but you’re putting your own spin on it. So you’re using your talents that you have and combining those loves. And it’s such a great need. It is so true. It is definitely true, needing to hear about people. And there’s women in this book that I haven’t even heard about before. As an adult, I don’t know about everything, but I’m like, oh, that’s really cool, or I wouldn’t have thought of that person. So how did you 50 is a lot. I mean, that’s a lot, but also a small list. How did you come about picking the 50? How did you figure that out?

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:10:03]:

Well, there was, like, three things that I was kind of using as, like, a metric to pick the women out. One was accomplishment, because the sort of argument that I’m making in this book is that women have been always there. We’ve been kind of achieving at the same level as these male science heroes, like as the Einstein’s, as the Teslas. We just haven’t been getting acknowledgement. So to make that argument, you also have to find women who have done accomplishments that are at the level of the most famous female scientist, Marie Curie, and really highlight those accomplishments. So that was one metric. The other one was, we’ve been doing this since the dawn of history, so I needed a breath of history. So that’s why we go all the way back to the first ever recorded female mathematician, Hypatia, and we actually go all the way to the first woman to win a Fields Medal, which is Miriam Mizorzaki. And the Fields medal is like the Nobel prize in math. And she kind of figured out through her discoveries how particle moves through this very high level sort of abstract mathematical field called, like, hyperbolic math. I had to talk to people who are that was a little above my pay grade to understand. So I actually knocked on the door of my friends who were they were math majors in college, and they’re getting their PhDs. And I was like, Explain this to me. So having them look over that part of the work was actually really great to how to then do I explain it to, like, a seven year old? But of course, we talk about a lot more than mathematicians. I also wanted a diversity of math fields and of story. So in this book, there are women who have traveled to outer space. There’s women who explored the deepest parts of our ocean. We have astrophysicists, but we also have stories throughout history of these women’s lived experiences. So through the eyes of these women, we learn about the civil rights movement, we learn about suffrage, we learn about the class structure that a lot of these women who were born into poverty had to overcome to be able to even have their work seen. And so we talk about a lot more than just science. We talk about racism, sexism, overcoming economic difficulties, classism. And through the lens of these women’s stories, you see that through their passion of discovery, they overcome all sorts of barriers. And they actually do. They change our world for the better because of it. And now we can celebrate them.

Naomi Meredith [00:12:41]:

Oh, yeah. It definitely is a celebration. And I love that because there’s a purpose behind and certain jobs at certain time periods, too. I mean, obviously the first person, but some of these careers are still around today, or they’ve morphed into other careers as well. So it’s super inspiring, of course, for women or young girls. And even the young boy, like all children, really, all children can be inspired. And I could even see as a teacher, you read one a day, or if you are even a STEM teacher when you see all the kids in the school. That’s how my job was, 150 kids a day. But you could have one displayed like one a day. You’re like, hey, we’re going to learn about this person today. Or you could roll a dice and see, okay, we’re going to page 71 and here’s who we’re going to read about. So you could definitely gamify it. But I love how it connects the history and the purpose behind their career and the problem they’re trying to solve, which is what we’re always telling kids in STEM, what problem are you trying to solve? What impact are you using your skills? And I would tell the kids, you want to use your skills like a superhero. It’s like, either for good or for evil. We want the good. We want the good side. Guys, come on.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:13:57]:

It’s so funny you say that, because that’s exactly how I think about art, where it’s like, you could use your skills to help tell the stories of major corporations. You could use it to sell Coca Cola, or you could use it to tell stories that I think are important, like unsung heroes in history. To talk about science. To talk about history. So I always say I use my skills as a graphic designer to help educate rather than sell things.

Naomi Meredith [00:14:28]:

And all of your things are educational, for sure.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:14:31]:

Oh, yeah. I mean, everything I make, I make with teachers in mind. And it’s so funny that you also said that about the gamification of the book because I also created it with that in mind, where you don’t have to read it literally. You could just pick it up, open a page, and learn something, even if it’s just looking at the illustration. And by creating, like, a hierarchy of information with illustration with different typefaces. This book is read by women who are in grad school, who are like, I just want to be inspired, and I want to learn about other fields and the sciences and learn about history. But also I have kids as young as seven who they do exactly what you said. They read a page a night with their parents. The little kids read the fun facts, and then the parent reads the large write up. And then they spend the rest of the night asking questions, looking up online on Wikipedia to learn more, literally making lists of other books that they could read that are about this woman or the field of study. So it’s like hearing stories like that. I’m like, okay, good, the material is working. My evil plan has come to fruition more. This is great.

Naomi Meredith [00:15:42]:

Yeah, you’re tricked into learning more. It’s so true. Yeah, and it’s cool because you could spend time and your other books are like this, too, but you can just spend time just looking at the graphics for a while and then you could just stare at them.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:15:59]:

Yeah, everything I wanted to be so beautiful that you would want to display it. So even if you’re apprehensive about learning science, because science is one of those topics that and I think this is more true for adults than it is for kids, but you get in your head about it, where I’ve met a lot of adults who are down on themselves. They’re like, I’m not smart enough to learn about this topic, because maybe they had a bad experience when they were in school, and they carry that with them for the rest of their lives. But by making something beautiful and also friendly, which I do by just putting happy faces on everything, like power of Happy Face is real. It’s like a cheap trick. And I’m going to keep using it because it works. Literally. You put a smile on the page and you make it beautiful, and then you’re reaching a whole new audience who’s learning something new, and they don’t feel the anxiety about learning science completely melts away. And I’ve done that with my book. The history of the Computer. I’ve done that with my book. The Wondrous Workings of Planet Earth and my woman in series. And what is really exciting is that I have just started this new series, starting with the book What’s Inside a Flower? And instead of sort of focusing on the middle grade to adult audience, I decided to create resources for elementary school kids because I think that that fear of science can start as early as elementary school. So if we break down those barriers early, little kids can realize that the small questions that they have about the natural world and maybe their own body and just how the universe works, those are all actually like scientific questions with science answers. And that’s the first step to being a little scientist. So. Yeah. What’s inside? A flower. And then the next book is What’s Inside a caterpillar cocoon. So I’m also really excited about those that’s definitely elementary.

Naomi Meredith [00:17:52]:

We teach that. I actually just found a caterpillar the other day, and I tried to teach my dog what it was, and he did not like it.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:18:00]:

Yeah, dogs are a little hard.

Naomi Meredith [00:18:03]:

He didn’t understand. So I’m like, okay, well, this isn’t going to work. I know it’s true, but I love that because I noticed that with my students and even just with teachers over the years, that science is a hard like what you’re saying. And that’s probably why the misconceptions about science as an adult, and it’s harder to teach half of it’s. The materials are boring, to be honest. I’ve had science curriculums that are really ugly, and they’re not engaging, and the kids aren’t into it. That is a real thing. And then teachers are stressed for time. They’re like, oh, we’ll just watch a video about it. Oh, we’ll just watch a video about it again. And I’ve had kids tell me, “Oh, I hate science.” And I was their STEM teacher. So they came to me separate, but they’re like, I just don’t like it. It’s boring. I’m like, oh, no, science is amazing. It’s wonderful. That’s how our world is. But just a lot of those adult misconceptions of what science is or teachers skipping it, and it is that whole cycle of you want to catch them when they’re young and spark, and even if they don’t go into a STEM field, it’s still important to appreciate those types of fields anyway.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:19:15]:

Yeah, I’m a big believer in you don’t have to go into STEM to have the need to be scientifically literate because I see science literacy the same as I see writing literacy and math literacy, where these are all skills that you need to navigate the world, whether or not you become a professional in that space. So, again, building confidence in those areas, whether it’s in tech or environmental science or anything, just giving a base understanding will allow people as adults to make informed decisions and also to ask for better things. You know what I mean? There’s a lot of, I mean, this is an adult problem, but I’ve even seen adults who are like, they’re upset with the technology that they have, but they don’t think they deserve to ask for better technology because they don’t understand how the tech is made. And I don’t think that’s bad. We should encourage everybody to be able to ask for what they need and to advocate for themselves, especially when it comes to the sciences because we all interact with it.

Naomi Meredith [00:20:22]:

Oh, it’s absolutely true. It’s around us more than we actually think, especially in this day and age, and we sometimes take it for granted, especially in education. I feel like where we have all these tools and resources and became apparent during COVID too, I mean, just, oh, my goodness, we actually need to know how to do this. Yes, we do. And being a STEM teacher, it’s definitely something that I believe in. But I agree. Just with all that science and technology, it’s important, and we need to spark that passion and that knowledge. And again, when you’re young, it’ll lead up to all of your life experiences from there. Speaking of technology, you also have the history where’s the camera history of the computer?

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:21:11]:

Yes.

Naomi Meredith [00:21:13]:

Okay, so I did a STEM career day, and I had parents come in, and they talked about their STEM careers and or how their job uses STEM skills. And one of the stations was a parent brought in all these parts of the inside of a computer, and that was one of the most favorite stations of all. And you have so much detail in this. So how did you piece this all together? I mean, that’s a huge history, and you have all of it in here. How did you just get it all organized the way it is?

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:21:46]:

I mean, it’s 25,000 years of history.

Naomi Meredith [00:21:50]:

Exactly.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:21:51]:

It’s really wild in 100 pages year project. It was really intense. And actually it started with me visiting the Computer History Museum that’s in Mountain View, the Living Museum computer and labs that’s in Seattle that, unfortunately, it’s like it doesn’t exist anymore because it got shut down. And as I was doing all this research, COVID happens in all the museums you’re not allowed to go to. Me and my husband started our own little vintage computer museum in our home. We started buying vintage computers, so I could kind of have them as models and also reference points because it’s human history, and if you can’t touch the machines and realize how you interact with them, you don’t get to really feel them. So we actually have a 1977 Commodore Pet and a 1984 Macintosh. And we have a ton of other computers too, but we bring those around when we do school events, and the kids go wild for them. We just did Comic Con, and we brought those computers with us. And we had kids as young as seven, and they had to be dragged away by their parents because they were having so much fun on those computers. And I’m like, oh, a little historian is born. But in the book, I thought a lot about my own experience with computers, which is when I was seven years old, I walked into my public library, and I immediately started drawing on a matte color classic. Then you think about what you think of when you think of the first computers, which are these giant room size computers that are locked away in secret underground basements that were made for World War II. And you needed an immense amount of specialized skills and security clearance to be able to use it. So how did we go from that to a child being able to walk up to a machine in their library and use it instantly without prior knowledge, with nothing like no onboarding? So kind of like the spark. And to tell that story, we actually had to go all the way back to the first mathematical tools ever created by human beings, which were we’re talking about prehistoric humans notching on bones, drawing in the sand, just trying to keep track of the population, how many sheep they had. And it makes you really think that we have been creating tools to augment human intellect, to expand our ability to think and expand our ability to store information since the dawn of civilization. And the smartphones that we’re carrying around in our pockets is just an evolution of this tool building that really is baked into who we are as human beings. And then that gets you thinking, what are we amplifying with these tools? What parts of ourselves are we amplifying? And who really has control and power over how the tools are built, what they’re being used for, and what the storage is doing? So when you start talking about computers like that, it’s not about the ones and zeros as much as it is about tool theory, relationships with it, and how all of humanity is affected by technology. And that’s a history that we really have to teach. And so I wanted to create tools for that because there was no book like that out there, especially not one that was illustrated. So this is the very first fully illustrated history of the computer, and it was really hard to do. I hurt my own really bad, drawing all the pictures.

Naomi Meredith [00:25:13]:

No, it was so good. I’m like, how long did this palm pilot one take? It’s amazing. But it’s true because I’ve listened to books about the history of the computer, and I’m like, oh, my gosh, it is so boring. But now I can be more informed, so I can help. But I love how it has, like, you always have this theme where, yes, it’s about this, but there’s a whole underlying theme, how everything is connected together. It’s all very incredible…you’re so creative, and that definitely shines through just merging those together and all of the knowledge that you’re learning.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:25:49]:

I read those really boring books, too, and this is what I tell students. I’m like, you got to read books to make books. It’s like my grandpa always was like, you have to eat bones to make bones, and that’s why I eat anchovies. So it’s like eating these tiny little fish, crushing their bones up in my mouth, making those bones. That’s how I see these books, where I’m like, I read these big, I call them thickums. I read these giant textbooks that are so dry sometimes, and you read them, and there are these moments, these little nuggets that are really like, you can’t stop thinking about that. Fun fact. You feel so inspired. And that’s the beauty of nonfiction, is digging through all this information to find these gems that you can highlight and polish and shine. So it’s so rewarding making these books. And as I research, write them and organize the information, I also become transformed myself. Like, I begin to see the world differently. I start noticing things, and then I just want to pass that on to other people.

Naomi Meredith [00:26:48]:

I love how you’re sharing all the knowledge in such a creative way. I love that you’re not just keeping it to yourself, you’re spreading the love to all of us out here. Okay, so you mentioned in there school events. What do you do for school events? What does that look like?

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:27:06]:

Okay, so it depends on the book. So for the history of the computer, it’s more of like a middle grade to adult talk where I basically go through the book and I give almost like an epcot tour of the history of the computer and I go all the way I explain, like ancient civilization, and I go all the way to the 1980s in the talk, because it’s all about how did this turn into a creative tool? And that really happened in the 80s with the invention of it. Not more so the invention but the actual accessibility of a graphic user interface. So those are like the pictures you see on your screen when you’re using a computer. And the fact that we started using widely, using what is called the desktop metaphor. So, like, a trash can looks like a trash can to get to your documents. It looks like a little piece of paper. This is all stuff we really take for granted. But back then, this was a huge leap in being able to actually use the computer. And all of a sudden, no longer did you have to take basically a year of schooling for learning how to code to be able to use it. You could just click around and start really playing with the programs. So from that, you start seeing people do graphic design on the computer, make music, play video games, start doing their homework on the computer, and the accessibility just became that much more. So we go all the way to that, and we talk about, like, Douglas Inglebard and the online sySTEM, the mother of all demos. We talk about World War II. We really talk about everything and explain how we got from point A to point B. But I bring the Commodore Pet, and I bring the Macintosh from 1984, and we load them up with games. So we have, like, Missile Command playing on the 1984 Mac. We have Space Invaders on the Commodore Pet, and we bring them just because they’re just so portable and they’re also iconic to look at. Yeah, they are playing with it. We show them the floppies. I actually have punch cards from the 1960s, from the IBM 5801. So I have, like, original punch cards. They get to look at those.

Naomi Meredith [00:29:18]:

Wow.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:29:19]:

Being able to touch and feel history, it makes you feel connected, and it sparks imagination, which then sparks questions, which then sparks an entire career path.

Naomi Meredith [00:29:30]:

Yeah.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:29:31]:

And. What was so cool is that we would have especially, like, when I brought this thing to Comic Con, I would have kids run up to the computers and gasp. There are these kids who are like ten years old who are obsessed with vintage gaming systems. So they recognize the computers and then they start talking about how they want to become electrical engineers. And you’re talking to kids as young as 910 about this, and they’re getting excited, and their parents are like, I had no idea you liked this so much. So you begin to really lean into what these kids like. I mean, I’ve given talks that start with me going, what’s your favorite video game? And then that’s how I start the talk about computers. And I’ll be walking out and I’ll have kids as young as seven grab me by the arm and go, what’s your favorite video game? I need to know myself. They’re so scary games, these kids. You get them with that. And I’m like, oh, Mario Kart. And they’re like, oh. So she’s like, the learning’s cool because she’s cool because she plays Mario Kart.

Naomi Meredith [00:30:31]:

It’s really cute.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:30:32]:

It is, meanwhile, for my other talks, like What’s Inside a Flower, which I’ve been giving to elementary schools all over the west coast. We just did a West Coast tour, and we’re actually about to do an East Coast tour from my newest Caterpillar Cocoon. We put really big on the screen, the book, and I do a read aloud, like in the dark, with it projected really big on a screen. And throughout the read aloud, I’m asking the kids science questions. I’m getting them to make little noises. We talk about how the soil, the root hairs slurp up minerals and water in the soil. We explain what mineral rich soil is, and I make all the kids make slurping noises. Getting that interaction, showing these illustrations larger than life, and having the kids yell out what their favorite bugs are. I know it sounds goofy, but these are the moments that they’ll carry with them. And what’s remarkable about it is that you do that. But then you also get the kids as young as Pre-K to yell out photosynthesis, to understand what pollination is, and to understand the ecological importance of plants. And you see that they get that understanding because at the end of it, you ask them questions, and their responses are far like, don’t underestimate these kids. They’re far more advanced than you ever thought they would be. So getting the kids to tell me, what do plants do for people? And them connecting with them, with the fact that those are natural resources, that’s very powerful stuff to teach at a young age. And those books that I’ve been touring with. The What’s Inside a Flower? What’s inside a caterpillar cocoon? To write those books, I actually read through elementary science curriculum. I read the California curriculum, I read the Texas curriculum. I read the New York curriculum to make sure that I was hitting the points that teachers actually were teaching in classrooms so that this wasn’t just another book about caterpillars. This is a science book that can really be used in story time or in the science context of a classroom setting.

Naomi Meredith [00:32:41]:

Oh, absolutely. And you’re preaching to the choir. It’s not weird at all. It is not weird. You’re talking to all teachers here. I’m sure they’re shaking their heads like, yes, that’s real life in the elementary space. You’re definitely an honorary teacher for sure. And I want to come see this. I’m sure you are amazing in front of kids. I wrote down Tour so I can look up where you’re going because I.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:33:10]:

Want to go see one.

Naomi Meredith [00:33:14]:

I love that because that’s what teachers are looking for. I mean, we’re always so bogged down with standards curriculum, which makes sense, honestly. I’m all about that with the content I teach. So that’s awesome that you did that for your books, but we’re always looking for meaningful experiences for our kids. There’s limited time in the day, so connecting that all together. So using your book in the classroom, along with if they’re able to get you into their buildings, and it’s all tying it together, whether or not they’re teaching at that this year or everything is cyclical, so it’s okay to repeat things. You don’t know everything about everything as a scientist, so there’s always more to learn. And it’s good to hear it repeated. That means it’s important. So I love that so much. Well, everybody needs to definitely find you and get their hands on all of your books, but at least start with one. Start with one, and then you’ll want to buy more. But where can people find you? Where are the best places to look for you? Rachel.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:34:18]:

Okay, so I’m the only Rachel Ignatovsky in the world. Yeah. Lucky me. I blame my father and his ten letter long last name. So if you’re looking for me, all you have to do is type Rachel Ignatovsky into a search engine, and I will pop up. You could follow me on Instagram at Rachel Ignitovsky, and you could go to my website, Rachelignatovskydesign.com. And what’s cool for teachers is that on my website, I have also created free worksheets that go with every single one of my books. So if you’re thinking, like, what’s a fun activity that I can do that’s chill and relax, please come print out my coloring worksheets. Print them out and have fun. They’re used at natural history museums for adults when they’re having cocktail and quiz night, and they’re used at schools all across the country, so they work on a lot of levels. Everyone likes to color. That’s what I’ve learned. So Rachel Ignutovsky. Rachel Ignitovskydesign.com. And my books are sold everywhere. Books are sold. So also at your favorite bookstore.

Naomi Meredith [00:35:31]:

I love that. Well, everyone’s going to be definitely hitting you up, especially with back to school time or any time of the year. You’re just like, great for any teacher who teaches science, and in elementary, that’s all of us. So you’re great for all of us and adults as well. But I appreciate your time and your passion. I can just tell you’re so passionate and just how you’re supporting education, and I love how you’re using your talents to the fullest. That’s amazing that you’re sharing all of the things that you can do with the world, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for you.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:36:08]:

Thank you so much. Honestly, teachers, since the start of my career, teachers have been the inspiration for every single piece of art that I have made. Like, what you guys do in the classroom is amazing, and to be able to have my work be part of lesson plans is just like all I ever wanted. So it makes me so happy too.

Naomi Meredith [00:36:27]:

Hear, well, teachers are definitely going to be using you’re going to get more teachers to use your things, which is great after this. Well, thank you so much again, and I can’t wait for everyone to have heard this whole interview.

Rachel Ignotofsky [00:36:45]:

Thank you so much.