Igniting Lifelong Learning Through Bugs, Science, and VR with Tony Gustin

PODCAST Season 6 EPISODE 14

Antonio P Gustin

The Bug Whisperer - Director of the Gateway Science Project

Quotes of the Podcast: 

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. 

Introduction of Guest BIO – 

Antonio "Tony" Gustin, known as The Bug Whisperer, is an entomologist and performing science educator who founded Tony's Creepy Crawly Zoo in 1995 as a traveling live invertebrate show. Over roughly 30 years it reached more than 1.5 million students and grew into The Gateway Science Project, Inc., a 501(c)(3) STEAM nonprofit whose mission is to turn curiosity into scientific literacy. A UW-Madison-trained entomologist, Tony invented a custom 8K macro 360-degree camera system and spent six years building Tony's Creepy Crawly Zoo 2.0, a macro VR experience that drops viewers inside insect, arachnid, and reptile habitats at roughly a two-inch scale. His work centers on hands-on wonder as the antidote to scientific misinformation, especially for kids.

Interview

Agents of Change: Leaders/Innovators.

• 30,000 Ft. View – Why so we, as a society invest in education?
• What drew you to education?
• Science is a verb: hands-on, experiential learning 
• From a traveling live show to macro VR: the 30-year evolution of Tony's Creepy Crawly Zoo 
• VR as an access and equity tool for any classroom 
• Curiosity as the cure for misinformation
• What are the biggest challenges to you?
• What would you like decision makers to know?”

Podcast/ website/ book shoutouts

Experience the app! https://www.meta.com/experiences/tonys-creepy-crawly-zoo-20/26476390235366322/

Education Perspectives is edited by Shashank P

Intro and Outro by Dynamix Productions

Transcript

Liza Holland [00:00:02]:
Welcome to Education Perspectives. I am your host, Liza Holland. This is a podcast that explores the role of education in our society from a variety of lenses. Education needs to evolve to meet the needs of today and the future. Solving such huge issues requires understanding. Join me as we begin to explore the many perspectives of education. Welcome back to Education Perspectives. We are so excited to have Tony Gustine with us today.

Liza Holland [00:00:36]:
He is the Bug Whisperer and the director of the Gateway Science Project. Tony, so glad to have you here.

Tony Gustin.  [00:00:44]:
Thank you very much for having me.

Liza Holland [00:00:46]:
Well, I'd love to kick you off with that, uh, 30,000-foot question. Why do you think that we as a society should invest in education?

Tony Gustin.  [00:00:54]:
You know, that's a funny question to me because it's almost a non sequitur. It's like saying, well, why do we need the sun? And I understand that this gets debated a lot because people don't always think in long term. You know, an education is cathedral thinking where the results of today you might not see for another 20 years. But to not think that far ahead is very short-sighted.

Liza Holland [00:01:22]:
Yeah.

Tony Gustin.  [00:01:23]:
So as a society, we either go forward or we go backward, and education is how we go forward. Education's everything. It's the transfer of knowledge from all of those who came before us. And to be educated is to be able to stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, take all that knowledge, and create even something better. It gives us opportunities. And, you know, we get to reach a little higher. And I think that We owe it to those who built that path for us to go further, to deepen our understanding of who we are as a species and even our place in the cosmos. I'm a big science fan, but not science education for the ologies, but science for the process, where it's all about thinking critically and running your thoughts through a process.

Tony Gustin.  [00:02:14]:
And I don't mean to say that education should be all about science. Poetry is absolutely wonderful and extends the human experience. Science just happens to be that lens that reveals who we are as a process and using it as a verb. And for me personally, that investment in education, I think about the world that I want to live in, and I want to live in a world where everyone knows that we are actually the children of stars. We are made of stars. We are the cosmos made conscious and the result of 3.5 billion years of evolution. And I want to live in a world where everyone can look in the mirror and own that as part of who we are. And I think of that as an idyllic population, a society moving forward.

Tony Gustin.  [00:03:10]:
And all of that starts with education.

Liza Holland [00:03:15]:
That was incredibly eloquent. And boy, do I agree with you. And I love that piece too, of because science has such a process of thinking to it, realistically, that process can be applied across the board, right? It's how you think as opposed to necessarily how things get done. It's how you process your thinking.

Tony Gustin.  [00:03:37]:
Absolutely. I mean, even, you know, we look back at societies where science, we could see the beginnings of it, like with the Greeks and the Romans and their obsession with oratory skills, where they broke just oratory skills down to a science of rhetoric. And it was that process of looking at it, understanding it, testing what works, what doesn't work and building upon that and putting together a system. And that you wouldn't think of rhetoric as a science, as an art.

Liza Holland [00:04:12]:
But it is.

Tony Gustin.  [00:04:14]:
But it is.

Liza Holland [00:04:15]:
Yeah. Oh, how neat. So you yourself are a scientist and an entomologist. Tell me how that took you to education, to drawing, to want to be able to light this fire with kids.

Tony Gustin.  [00:04:30]:
Well, I have to tell you that it didn't start that way. It didn't at all. I never even thought of myself as an educator in the beginning. And the whole idea of the Creepy Crawly Zoo, which was the live show that I did for kids where I brought live animals that they got to touch and hold, started as a joke over a couple of beers out with some friends from college. One of them had just finished her master's and she blurted out, I don't want to work 9 to 5 the rest of my life. I want to talk about bugs and I want to get paid to do it. And we all laughed, you know, and cheered and raised our glasses. And we started talking to each other about how we all got involved in entomology.

Tony Gustin.  [00:05:14]:
And we realized none of us had gone to college to study entomology. We didn't even know you could go to college to study entomology.

Liza Holland [00:05:25]:
Yeah.

Tony Gustin.  [00:05:26]:
We didn't know it was available. We had all stumbled on it by accident. And all of us worked for the department. We were all gung-ho in what we did. And, you know, when we talked about it, we were like, could you imagine if someone had just gone to our school and told us that we could do something like this when we grew up? I mean, that would have saved me 4 majors alone. And we said, yeah. Now imagine if you went to that school and you brought live insects, what that would have done to kids like us. And we were all like, yeah.

Tony Gustin.  [00:06:01]:
And then we said, now imagine if you brought live insects that they could touch and hold, what that would have done to kids like us. And we were all like, yeah. And I was like, yeah. Why isn't somebody doing that? And that's how the whole thing started. It was just a joke. And then I started to talk to people and I got fed information. I learned about other people who were doing something similar, you know, in other parts of the country. And I had been working on a business plan for an exotic pet store that had an integrated zoo and a traveling education program.

Tony Gustin.  [00:06:42]:
And by this point, I had done a few education programs because I was really into reptiles too. And one of my professors I had a wife who was a schoolteacher, and I went and I gave a couple talks bringing my animals. So I had a little kind of background on how this would work. And I built up this whole thing. I met with people who kind of worked with schools. One of my current partners, Dan Capps, was a collector who had the world's largest private insect collection at that time. And he was from the area I was in. And I thought, I need to call this guy.

Tony Gustin.  [00:07:20]:
And because he goes to schools, he knows things I don't. And I don't know if you know a lot about like really avid insect collectors, but there's a Tiger King theme to a lot of them. And I expected him to be like, buzz off, kid, you know? And instead he invited me over and said, would you like a beer? And just Talk to me about working with schools. And, you know, I was like, well, I don't want you to feel like I'm stepping on your toes. And he was like, Tony, I'm a mechanic at Oscar Mayer. He's like, I have a job. And he's like, my problem is I cannot say no when a school asks me to come in with my collection. So if I had someone to refer them to, I would be really happy about that.

Tony Gustin.  [00:08:07]:
And that's how he and I met. And this is 30-plus years ago. So all the pieces started coming together. And my whole idea was just to do this for kids like me, where I just told them that they actually could grow up to do this. It wasn't about the facts. It wasn't about how important entomology was or conservation or anything like that. And the whole idea was based around touching these live animals. So in my first experience in first grade, I went from college to first grade, and on my way there, I'm memorizing all these facts, like I'm going to tell these little kids things that I didn't learn until I was in college.

Tony Gustin.  [00:08:53]:
And I went from college to first grade and had no idea what their world was like. I was talking about Aristotle. They didn't know who the Greeks were. And, you know, this is back in the '90s. So Hercules and Xena hadn't even come out yet. There was no reference for it. And I died a slow and miserable death in front of my first group. But then I said, do you guys just want to come play with the bugs? And they were like, yeah.

Tony Gustin.  [00:09:24]:
And I got bumrushed by 90 first graders who came up and just went crazy. And that part was a big hit. But being ADHD, I have this thing about myself where whatever I did, I never wanted to be mediocre. And I knew that I had to work on myself and relating to their world. I mean, I didn't even remember what single file was when I went there or recess, you know, how they're so excited to get outside for 15 minutes. And so I spent the next 2 years watching Cartoon Network, Dragon Ball Z, Powerpuff Girls at the time, and trying to understand them, you know, and relate to them. And then working with the different ages, 1st grade through 6th grade, they're different. They, you know, they have different interests.

Tony Gustin.  [00:10:17]:
They, they want to be spoke to differently. And I always looked at it. From what I would want if I was sitting where they were sitting. And it took me about 2 years to get my shtick down, but I finally came up with a universal shtick where I incorporated stuff from all the great teachers I had in my life and how I learned from them. And believe it or not, my high school math teacher, Mrs. Stiglitz, was a big part of that. She was just this person who every class was a performance, and she had this way of speaking where you were just following her, and you finally jumped in and would start to participate. And then I had a professor in college who was just this great raconteur and vignetted everything in a story that he had experienced.

Tony Gustin.  [00:11:11]:
And so I started to do this and taking things from my favorite educators like Bill Nye the Science Guy, whose philosophy was always Entertainment first, education second. So I became this raconteur that told these stories that I acted out, trying to be silly for them, to invite them to be, to participate, you know, in this conversation at their level. And I got it to a point where I had this very Powerful, funny, cute, entertaining stick that all led towards the part where they could touch and hold these bizarre and crazy live animals. And that was it. That was my, my goal. But then I'm a slow learner. As time went on, I started to get a lot of feedback from parents and from teachers. And One time early in my career, this librarian came up to me and she was the kind of librarian that you were afraid of, you know, where she, her resting face was not, you're like, oh, I'm in trouble for something.

Tony Gustin.  [00:12:26]:
And she was like, young man. And I looked at her and even I was scared. I was like, yes. She's like, I just want to tell you that you did something today. And I stared at her like, what am I going to get in trouble for? And she was telling me about a boy that they had in their school where they couldn't get him interested in anything. They tried. They were trying to reach him to find his interests, and they could not. And apparently, after my show, where he was very excited, he had a really good time, and he got to touch and feel these amazing, bizarre creatures, he went to the library and checked out every book they had on insects.

Tony Gustin.  [00:13:05]:
And I came back the following year and she's like, she found me and came up to me again and told me that he's not at the school anymore. He'd moved on. She's like, but there wasn't a week that went by after that show where he didn't check out another book on insects. And I thought, wow, that was so cool. Like, I really appreciate you telling me that. I mean, it made me feel like I did something. And again, my goal was just to say, hey, you can do this too when you grow up. But I've had influences like, you know, quotes like from Sid Caesar who said he was talking about comedians and how if they wanted to make a political statement, if you wanted people to listen, first you had to make them laugh.

Tony Gustin.  [00:13:51]:
And Johnny Rotten was in an interview once where he said, if you're going to make music, make the kind of music that makes someone else want to pick up a guitar. And those things always stuck with me when I did my show. So I wanted to make them laugh and I wanted them to want to do what I was doing. And it was just fun for me. I didn't think of it in terms of education. I wasn't trying to deliver facts and figures or anything about entomology. And it worked well with schools because insects are curriculum they study. So if they hadn't studied it, this would enhance the anticipation of studying insects.

Tony Gustin.  [00:14:29]:
And if they had studied insects, this brought that lesson to life. And I started to hear from teachers who would tell me that years after I had been to their school, whenever insects came up again, they'd be like, oh dude, do you remember that guy when he ate that millipede? And, and they would get all excited and it would go back and forth. And suddenly I realized that I was having an impact on their education. And I went through phases of this program because I've been doing it a really long time. And like I said, this was just my original goal. And I'd get letters and, you know, emails from parents, from teachers. And I even got a love letter from a student once, which I think I still have somewhere about how, how much she loved insects and asked me if I liked to ride bikes and things like, it was really cute. And I was realizing I was having, you know, this, this impact, which kept me going because it was doing something.

Tony Gustin.  [00:15:29]:
And after about 15 years, I kind of burnt out. You know, I had no semblance of an adult life. I was a grown man traveling to schools, doing these shows, you know, and had a house full of bugs. I mean, that's like the beginning of a joke. Where you— where you're Talking about this, and I'd burnt out, and I decided, you know what, for me personally, I need to have my own life. I need to do something different. And at that time, the series of Cosmos came out, the Redux with Neil deGrasse Tyson, and it was masterfully done, and it was absolutely fantastic. And I think I've seen every episode 30 times or more.

Tony Gustin.  [00:16:15]:
But one of the things in that show that they covered was the story of the scientists who went on to make these discoveries that elevated all of mankind. All of them were just regular children at one point that had some experience that sent them down the road to pursue science. And as I kept watching the series, over and over again. And I had been a big fan of Sagan. I've read all his books several times. And I started to see a pattern here where what I was doing, which was much more than just being about insects, all the letters, all the emails, the parents who accosted me when they found out who I was and come up and be like, you, I need to talk to you. I'm mad at you. And I was like, okay, what? And they would say that ever since you came to my kid's school, I have not been able to take a vacation without packing nets and jars.

Tony Gustin.  [00:17:21]:
And so I realized they weren't really mad, but when someone comes up to you like that, who's a parent of a child that you had apparently influenced, you don't know what to expect. But I started to realize that the insects were inspiring this mad curiosity. And I'm a curious person. I'm a lifelong learner. You know, part of being ADHD too is always having some new interest that you go down a rabbit hole. So everything I did was from that perspective. If one of those kids were like me, were, were sitting there and I was inspiring this curiosity. that long outlived my time at their school.

Tony Gustin.  [00:18:03]:
They would run home, they would tear apart their backyards looking for more. They would email me pictures of the bugs that they were finding in their yard. And I was, when I was watching Cosmos and they were talking about the scientists as kids, this pattern became clear to me in my head where I'm like, I know those kids. I make those kids. And all of a sudden, all my life's work up until that point came into focus on what the insects were actually doing. And I realized how perfect insects were as a tool to inspire scientific curiosity. They are everywhere. No kid has to go anywhere to find insects.

Tony Gustin.  [00:18:51]:
They affect Everything. And the questions you ask about that one subject can lead down a rabbit hole to every single science you can think of, including astrophysics. Moths navigate by using the moon. Dung beetles actually navigate by using the Milky Way itself. And it started with insects. I kept it about insects, but I finally had this purpose of what I could do to contribute to science, and that was to inspire the next generation of scientists. And I never cared that they grew up to be entomologists, but I did care that they grew up to be lifelong learners inspired by curiosity. And I lived long enough doing this show to actually meet parents who were kids that I visited at their school who came to my show with their kids to experience this.

Tony Gustin.  [00:19:52]:
And a lot of them had either gone into fields related to it because of the day I came to their school, or they still kept caterpillars or tarantulas or things like that. And that to me was just awesome. You know, it's, it, People see you when you're doing really well. No one ever sees you when you're curled up in the fetal position on the verge of a nervous breakdown, hoping a check comes in the mail so you don't end up homeless. I've gone through all of that, but no matter what I've gone through, that feeling that I've contributed to something and inspired curiosity that wasn't just to learn a subject, but curiosity to keep learning throughout their entire lives. So the insects were having this effect and that's what made me an educator. And like I said, I did not start out with that goal in mind, but insects are the roller coaster in the theme park, whether you love them or you hate them, people are still fascinated by them. And then when they learned that they could just do this themselves, kids only need to feel that desire, that curiosity, and they will go find that information.

Tony Gustin.  [00:21:05]:
by themselves. So that was what attracted me to the situation I found myself in, becoming an educator and a science evangelist.

Liza Holland [00:21:17]:
What a fabulous story. I mean, that's, that's just so powerful. And you were an early adopter of this experiential education and in some respects, profession-connected learning. Here in Kentucky, they're calling them vibrant learning experiences. And boy, it is, That's a great word. That's phenomenal. Yeah, yeah. And I'm real excited to hear, I mean, education is an extraordinarily big boat to turn.

Liza Holland [00:21:44]:
I mean, it's grounded in a system that really doesn't match what we need it to do today. But things like what you're doing are exactly what we need to infuse into education in a more Relevant and applicable type of a way.

Tony Gustin.  [00:22:03]:
Consistent. Yeah.

Liza Holland [00:22:04]:
Yeah. And that whole lifelong learners piece is exactly what we need to be doing because, you know, no matter how long you go to school these days, the pace of change outpaces it. Yeah.

Tony Gustin.  [00:22:15]:
You had a guest on, Mark Sparvell, who I think echoed— I mean, I listened to it and I was like, I got to have a beer with this guy. Like, he got it where it's about the curiosity. The desire to learn. And it doesn't matter the subject that they go into. I have a friend who knits sweaters for a living, but she does it at a master level. And people love her work. This is her love. This is what she does.

Tony Gustin.  [00:22:43]:
And education doesn't have to be just about science. But if you have the ability to do what you love, what you're passionate about, I think it's great. And I think education should be more about the passion, you know, that teachers feel for their particular subjects, because kids will forget what you say, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

Liza Holland [00:23:07]:
Maya Angelou. Yes, ma'am. Yes. Uh-huh. I totally agree. And those are those landmark things that all of us have some teacher or some experience that happened to us when we went through school. Too many years ago to count for me. But, but yeah, I mean, I just, I think we need to find ways to be able to create that kind of, of passion and love for learning.

Tony Gustin.  [00:23:32]:
Yeah. And that's what trickled off of me. I was just extremely passionate about what I did. And I put a lot of effort into my show to make sure that everybody left there screaming and excited.

Liza Holland [00:23:45]:
So you're speaking a little in the past tense about the zoo and what you were doing. Tell us about what you're doing now.

Tony Gustin.  [00:23:51]:
Another one of those ADHD rabbit holes that, you know, happen. So my desire, when after the whole Cosmos thing, I envisioned having a permanent location that was an insect reptile themed science park where you could come in to the building and you could do what you did in my live show where you could touch live insects and reptiles and see them in person. But that also had this outside area where you could tell a kid, here's a net. Yeah. Here's a jar. Go tell me what you find, you know, and have these live experiences where they were out exploring and finding things and then building on that curiosity. And then I had worked my butt off for 4 years to build that. And I had gotten to the point where I had sponsors that were interested in my live show.

Tony Gustin.  [00:24:41]:
I was booked solid for the entire year. I had just published a science activity book to hone those curiosity skills while kids were playing, and I published it the day the stay-home order was issued. So everything I had worked for came to a screeching halt, and everyone said, well, you know, everyone's going virtual now. And I thought to myself, that's an awful idea. I mean, you don't need a grown man to hold tarantulas up in front of a webcam. You can go on YouTube and see better things than that. And I did one virtual show to fill an obligation I had, and it was exactly what I thought it was going to be. It was awful.

Tony Gustin.  [00:25:27]:
And it was nothing about what the live show did. It was just talking about insects and just holding them from afar and being, look. So a couple of years before that, I was at a school doing a program and a friend of mine from high school was actually there doing another program. And he had gone on to work for EA Sports and was into building games in virtual reality. And he was doing a virtual reality demonstration. I had never done virtual reality. I don't know if you have done virtual reality, but my mind was blown. It— I was like, oh my God, this is crazy.

Tony Gustin.  [00:26:07]:
And I took the headset off and I looked at him and my first question was, Do they make a macro virtual reality camera? Because I knew what I was going to do with it immediately, and the technology didn't exist. So during the time of the pandemic, trying to brainstorm how to pivot and create an engaging experience without being there to personally engage, that idea came back. So I was thinking, you know, holding up a animal in front of the camera really doesn't do much. But if I could put you inside the terrarium with my animals virtually, now we're talking about something. So I looked up the technology again, still did not exist. And it bothered me so much and it was such a cool idea that I went down the ADHD rabbit hole and kept pursuing this, and I ran into YouTube influencers like Hugh Ho, who is immersive filmmaker and makes all these videos about how to do this yourself. And I started to learn about how these cameras operated, and I knew that it had to be possible, but there were mechanical engineering issues to solve because most VR cameras have a gap in the middle that doesn't matter when you're looking at, like, the real world. It's like a 1-inch gap.

Tony Gustin.  [00:27:34]:
You don't even notice it. If you're doing that at a macro level, that's like a space the size of a car that is missing from the experience. And if you're filming bugs and they go into that gap, you've lost the illusion.

Liza Holland [00:27:49]:
Yeah.

Tony Gustin.  [00:27:50]:
And so I don't want to, like, give your audience what I went through to brainstorm around this or what it's like to be ADHD and obsess over something going, there's got To be a way. And I went through 6 prototypes and I finally got onto the 6th one and I put it in a tarantula cage where I had this very active tarantula and I filmed for a while. I didn't even control the lighting. I just wanted to see if it was doing it. And then I went through the post-process, made it VR, and then I, I didn't even own a Quest headset. I was doing it with Google Cardboard and my phone.

Liza Holland [00:28:31]:
Wow.

Tony Gustin.  [00:28:31]:
To test all this out. And I put it on and I'm watching this and I'm like, oh my God, I actually did it.

Liza Holland [00:28:41]:
It—

Tony Gustin.  [00:28:41]:
I was in the terrarium with this tarantula that was the size of a Sprinter van in front of me. And I could see every single hair on its legs and look into its face like I was 2 inches tall. And staring at it. And I was absolutely flabbergasted that this worked. And from then on, I'm like, okay, now what? And so because I was in this virtual reality mindset of all the things that could be done and still wanting to do that permanent location that was this insect reptile themed science park, I built the whole thing in virtual reality. So there's an insect zoo that you walk through, you know, this room and around, you know, corners and things like that. And there's all these different terrariums. And when you point the controller at it, it tells you what's inside the cage.

Tony Gustin.  [00:29:38]:
You pull the trigger and you're inside the cage with lizards, snakes, scorpions. And I've been able to capture some really amazing things like a tarantula.

Liza Holland [00:29:50]:
Wow.

Tony Gustin.  [00:29:50]:
molting in time-lapse where it's the size of a car in front of you and you are watching it come out of its own shell bit by bit, like you're in the terrarium with it. And then through brainstorming all this, we're on the Quest Store now, but this went through several phases. And I had a friend who had been with me and he's an artist and he helps people who have dreams. This is like what he does. He calls himself the facilitator of And he said, hey, I have a 3D scanning camera. What can we do with it? And I was like, I, I don't know. Like, what can we do with it? It's too big for bugs. I mean, and I started thinking, you know, he was like, okay, all right, well, just think about it for a little bit and then let me know.

Tony Gustin.  [00:30:40]:
'Cause I had this camera for like a couple weeks. And then I remembered Dan Capps, my former mentor who helped me start the Creepy Crawly Zoo. And he has a collection that is simply his traveling collection, and it's 2 sets that come out to about 100 display cases. And to this day, from when I first met him, I have never seen another collection like it.

Liza Holland [00:31:04]:
Wow.

Tony Gustin.  [00:31:04]:
So we called him up and we set up his entire collection in a warehouse and 3D scanned all of it with the glass off so you could see each and every single insect in the display case in virtual reality like you were there. And when we finally got into the free-moving virtual reality from the virtual tours, now you can pick up the display case, you can hold it up in front of your face, you can make it bigger, and you can read the label on each and every insect. You want to go find out more about it? This tells you where it came from. And the collection is so spectacular that some of these insects are now extinct. Some of the specimens go back to 1872. And when I say they're extinct, I also want to clarify that wasn't because of collecting. The environments they lived in don't exist anymore, which is how most insects get wiped out as species. But there are 100 display cases in absolutely spectacular detail that are part of this experience that you can go through and you can pick up each and every one of them in virtual reality.

Tony Gustin.  [00:32:18]:
We have an outside garden too that will one day be a free-moving world, but for now, it's— we created plants so you can learn about the plants that the insects live on. And it's an all-encompassing virtual reality science park that I had envisioned many, many years ago.

Liza Holland [00:32:37]:
That's phenomenal. How exciting is that?

Tony Gustin.  [00:32:42]:
It is, but it's also so much work.

Liza Holland [00:32:45]:
I mean, what you have described is completely the innovation process, right? I mean, you kept trying and you kept iterating and one thing would work and one thing would not, and you just kept moving. And the more you learn, the more that your world is expanding.

Tony Gustin.  [00:33:01]:
And 6 years later, it became a reality.

Liza Holland [00:33:05]:
But you know what? That's okay for kids to know too. Because in this day and age, so much is instant gratification, you know? And that struggle is actually part of the process that has some of the most value, you know? Because look at what you've come up with. That's magical.

Tony Gustin.  [00:33:27]:
You know, it's one of those things where, like, if you shoot for the stars and you land on the moon, you'll still go farther than most people had ever dreamed of going. And this, the whole idea of doing it in virtual reality was an attempt to capture lightning in a bottle, you know, from the live show. And I won't say it's exactly the same because you're missing the tactile experience, but to be inside a terrarium with giant walking sticks, snakes, scorpions, where you're there with them, it is something. It's It's really, it's an experience.

Liza Holland [00:34:03]:
It's different.

Tony Gustin.  [00:34:05]:
Yeah, I'm the only one in the world with a camera like this.

Liza Holland [00:34:08]:
You know? Yeah.

Tony Gustin.  [00:34:09]:
Yeah. And I have to say that, you know, when I talk about the Creepy Crawly Zoo in the past tense, I do miss the contact that I have with the kids. I do. And you can't do that from the virtual reality experience, but I'm also older now and I'm not that guy who can keep bouncing around in front of my audience. So this is the way for me to continue that mission. You know, some, it's different, you know, can't deny that, but it's also meant to inspire and to create that sense of awe when you can see something from the perspective of it's bigger than you now.

Liza Holland [00:34:43]:
You know, I can completely agree with that. And I just, I see this, the breadth and depth of what you're able to see in that VR world. I mean, you talked about earlier that, you know, anybody can go out and access insect No matter where they are, which is totally true. But I imagine, especially in that collection, there's a whole lot that unless you had this special entryway, you would not be able to see those particular types of insects. You know, obviously, because some of them are extinct. But nevertheless, it's taking it just from a slightly different position. And, you know, think about some of these kids who've never been out into the country.

Tony Gustin.  [00:35:24]:
Yeah. You know, or in the jungles of New Guinea.

Liza Holland [00:35:28]:
Exactly. Exactly.

Tony Gustin.  [00:35:30]:
That's the great thing about virtual reality is it democratizes a lot of, you know, education where, sure, I can't go to the schools anymore with it, but anyone around the world can experience it at any time.

Liza Holland [00:35:43]:
That is so amazing. So amazing. So you've done a really good job of kind of covering a lot of the questions that I had. Let's take a little bit of a detour. You talked about some of the challenges that you faced, one of which was the technology didn't even exist yet, which is really, really powerful. Now, I would imagine that some of the challenges are access to virtual reality types of technology and whatnot.

Tony Gustin.  [00:36:12]:
Yeah, I'm still navigating that world as we speak. So We, my vision for this was always free moving virtual reality. And we finally achieved that. We launched in February and now it's available on the Quest headset. Not all schools use the Quest headset for their virtual reality programs. Sometimes there are services that provide their own headsets and have an enclosed environment for education, which I get. And I'm trying to get involved with some of them because I want this available to whomever. And, you know, if a school decides that this is the safest way to do it for their students, I get that.

Tony Gustin.  [00:36:52]:
But for me to get involved with that system is a real challenge, you know, to find that person who actually thinks what you did is worth contributing to their program. We're also available in VR arcades all around the world. We got involved with a a company called Synthesis VR, and they supply these games to virtual reality arcades. Some of these virtual reality arcades work with schools where they do come in, and so this is available to them as a classroom. They can do this. Right now, we have it as a single-person experience. Our goal, our next step is to make this a multi-person experience so a teacher can take their entire classroom through this together and they can see each other in it. So I'm in new waters now where I've gotten it to this far.

Tony Gustin.  [00:37:48]:
But yes, finding all the schools who, who do have access to it because this is who I created it for. Homeschools are a little different. They will, you know, get the Quest headsets and offer programs that way. And, you know, the problem with the Quest is everyone sees it as a gaming tool. It's for games. It's true. It is. I chase zombies through my house every once in a while.

Tony Gustin.  [00:38:12]:
It's fun. But it also has such a deep educational value that cannot be expressed by any other form of technology. And I understand that schools don't always have the funds or, you know, have someone on board who sees the vision of what this can do for their students. But I created a field trip that involves no buses, no chaperones, no insurance, you know, and they can go through it on a rain day, a snow day. You know, one class can use it, then the next class can use it. All these experiences in VR, not just my own, there are a lot of great educational experiences in virtual reality, are there. They're there for, for schools, for educators to either enhance their program or bring it to life. It's there, but it's, it's a niche technology.

Tony Gustin.  [00:39:07]:
So I have a niche subject in a niche technology in a niche industry. And yes, it's challenging.

Liza Holland [00:39:15]:
But you know what, the power of what you're offering transcends all those niches. It really does. And I would direct educators to look at the research on Minecraft, the educational value. Seriously, I mean, there's a lot of research out there on it. And it is Incredibly powerful. And one of the things that we do not do well at this point is to give the steering wheel to kids, to let them take the lead and try to explore their own learning journey. And that's what we need to build lifelong learners. They have to have the opportunity to go and explore it themselves, not be told what to do.

Tony Gustin.  [00:39:59]:
Yeah, there has to be a positive experience attached to it.

Liza Holland [00:40:03]:
Yes, exactly. And this is so it.

Tony Gustin.  [00:40:07]:
I thought so. And I'm glad you feel that way. It's difficult when you're the creator of it, because I know every frame that is out of place, every pixel that was like, that's not supposed to be like that. And sometimes I don't, I don't have the perspective to appreciate something that is this really as cool as I thought it was going to be. when I thought of it. And, you know, when I show it to friends, I'm like, oh, okay, it is cool. And I'm glad it's, you know, you're the guy behind it. You don't, you don't get to see the forest through the trees sometimes.

Liza Holland [00:40:40]:
Well, and I will share, I have done some work in the space with the Office of Innovation for Fayette County Public Schools. And we had a wonderful engineer from Lexmark who was working with us and he has set up virtual reality with a student who is now going in and teaching different companies how they can use the virtual reality in their training programs.

Tony Gustin.  [00:41:08]:
Oh, some of that technology is amazing.

Liza Holland [00:41:11]:
I mean, it's incredible. And these kids are, you know, they're digital natives. And so it's something that just— they have the ability to intuitively pick it up. And it's funny how they're able to explain it in a way that is not threatening to the business owners, and yet it is transforming how they're doing business. So, you know, the knowledge of VR technology in and of itself is a benefit and may lead to, you know, some kids onto a different career. I mean, you never know the breadth and depth of what your technology is going to touch. I mean, very much like your roadshow, right? Mm-hmm.

Tony Gustin.  [00:41:52]:
I'm sure when my friend introduced me to virtual reality, he had no idea what he had done. So, and I think that's the heart of the whole program. My niche was insects. That's what I, that was my tool, you know, to connect. But there are other means to do the exact same thing. And it's all about with education, it's connecting and, you know, showing those opportunities where a child sees something. And what I loved when I did my live show and they were touching the bugs and they were afraid of them. When they held it and got over the shaking, you can see the moment the 2 pieces in their head go like this and fit together and something just happened.

Tony Gustin.  [00:42:34]:
And, you know, it's the same with virtual reality. It's the same with any teacher who's passionate about what they portray. You never know the lesson that's going to make that connection. And the more opportunities there are to do things like this, like virtual reality, augmented reality, like you said, learning, you know, at companies where they train. I just think technology brings us those connections. And even though my project's in virtual reality and it's technology, I hope that when someone experiences it, it makes them want to go outside and to look and see it for themselves. I don't— I'm not trying to take away from that. I'm trying to get them to do that.

Tony Gustin.  [00:43:15]:
And yeah, I love the world we live in right now and the way everything's going with technology and even with virtual reality, augmented reality, There's also a company called WorldViz that just used our program at a demonstration at a convention for Fuji that makes virtual reality projected onto walls that is touch interactive. So instead of putting on the goggles, you're standing in the experience and then you just touch things on the wall. And it's funny because you think people at million-dollar companies have great vision, but they only had this to train like EMTs, police officers, military training. And they called me because they had an experience with one of the director's kids where they were like, yeah, we're starting to realize the educational value of this. And I was like, you're just realizing the educational value of this? Like, holy cow, I don't think you realize what you have. Like, it's amazing. And for the people who can't wear headsets, who get motion sickness with it, Yeah. Great alternative.

Tony Gustin.  [00:44:23]:
So it's, there are a lot of people out there contributing to this movement and it's just getting better and better.

Liza Holland [00:44:29]:
Well, my final question is usually what would you like decision makers to know? And I think you've covered a good portion of it, but is there any final thoughts as far as, you know, people in this education space? What would you like those people to know?

Tony Gustin.  [00:44:44]:
I'm never sure how to answer this question because I don't ever want to sound like I'm that anything is coming off as critical to educators because I could not do what they do every single day, 9 months a year, to be inspirational. But I would say that for schools in general, that this idea of having something extra to bring lessons to life, not just as a random, hey, this year we're going to do this or this, but as part of the curriculum, you know, to enhance and bring to life those experiences. I don't want to say they should do this. I think they should consider it and pursue this as an addition. And I know it's difficult because you never know what you're bringing into your school because there's no solid organization for this extra stuff. But For me, most of my business was word of mouth, one teacher to another. And that's a great way to start looking for these kinds of resources. And especially in different topics, like I'm, I teach entomology, but through teaching it, I became a huge fan of etymology.

Tony Gustin.  [00:45:57]:
You know, how our language has evolved and why we use the words we use. That's a whole nother topic, but it can be brought to life, even if it's through the, uh, a Shakespearean play. You know, to act it all out. I love the extra stuff because I was that ADHD kid in school who was never diagnosed because when I was in school, we didn't think of that. I was just a daydreamer. But for those kids like me, and there's a lot of them, these are the things that stick. So I would hope educators would be more open to some of the outside people that are trying to help. I don't know if that sounded as eloquent as I wanted it to, but that's all I would really have to say.

Liza Holland [00:46:44]:
I think they respect the humble nature in which you put that forward, but I will be stronger and say they should really think about some of these things. They really should. So much of what the work that I've done within education is realizing that so very many of them have no time. They have no time to stop and think, which means they don't have time to stop and be creative.

Tony Gustin.  [00:47:08]:
And that's our fault.

Liza Holland [00:47:10]:
And curious. Oh, it is. It's absolutely our fault. And legislators, please, like, and regulators, please, like, listen here.

Tony Gustin.  [00:47:17]:
This is the future of our country, our world, our species. And we need to invest in it, even if we don't think we're going to live long enough to see the results. If we feed that, I mean, we can make the world a better place through them. You never know when that one kid in front of you is going to be the next Einstein, Newton, Curie. It's— they're sitting there picking their nose right now, but they have the potential to go on and do great things.

Liza Holland [00:47:45]:
That is the best way to end this conversation. Thank you, Tony. It's been so wonderful to listen to this, and I admire your energy and your ability to continue to create. And I really I appreciate you sharing all this with us.

Tony Gustin.  [00:48:02]:
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Liza Holland [00:48:06]:
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Education Perspectives. Feel free to share your thoughts on our Facebook page. Let us know which education perspectives you would like to hear or share. Please subscribe and share with your friends.