Episode 138: Cannabis in Education & Critical Thinking with Christine Goedhart

Welcome to the Cannabis Cultivation and Science podcast. I'm your host Tad Hussey of KISS Organics. This is the podcast, we discuss the cutting edge of growing from a science based perspective and and drawn top experts from around the industry to share their wisdom and knowledge. My guest this week is Christine Goodheart. Christine is an experienced educator and educational developer with a specialization in teaching undergraduate biology courses. Currently serving as a science education specialist at the University of British Columbia, she supports faculty in making their courses more equitable and student centered and she recently developed and taught an undergraduate biology of cannabis course. Previously, Christine spent eight years as a full time faculty member at Citrus College where she taught a variety of biology courses for non major students. With a strong commitment to student centered and inclusive education, Christine has effectively implemented innovative assessment strategies to enhance student engagement and learning in biology courses and she shares information, tips and evidence based best practices for teaching in her Tips for teaching blog article series. Now on to the show. Hi Christine, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Happy to be here today.

Yes. So for listeners, I just want to mention I met Christine virtually when you sent me an email about a course that you're putting together at the University of British Columbia, also ubc. And I was so excited to hear from you and hear that about this course. Can you talk a little bit more about the course and what your process was and sort of putting it together?

Yeah, sure. So the course at UBC is called Biology of Cannabis and this was really something that I worked on with a research faculty here in the botany department at ubc. We actually have several people who work do their research on cannabis within the botany department. So this was one research faculty who was interested in creating this course. I have a strong passion and love for cannabis myself. So I was also very interested in this concept of a biology of cannabis course. So we worked together to get the course created, get it through the approval process and it is really designed to be a course that can be taken by any, any undergraduate in the university for their science breadth requirement. So it's not just for biology majors, it's for everyone. And it's really the concept behind it is to use cannabis kind of like a, like a case study or a vehicle for teaching students about foundational biological concepts. So things like genetics and biochemistry and metabolism, ecology, evolution, photosynthesis, you know, process of science. So using it as like a context to get these, to help students understand these concepts. So I, I worked with this faculty member to get the course created, and then once we knew it was approved, once it was on the course schedule, then I got to work with developing it and I was going to be the one to teach the first version of it, which happened last spring. And I am, I'm. My expertise is in teaching and learning in biology at the undergraduate level. It's, it's not in cannabis. So the first thing that I decided to do was to go out and talk to as many people as I could who were actually working with cannabis in real world ways and figure out, okay, what's going on with biology in the real world cannabis space and how can I bring this into the course to make it real world oriented, to really ground it in what's going on within cannabis and to make it interesting and relatable and understandable to students. I was really focused on making it as real world oriented and interesting and relatable and meaningful as possible.

That's really great. So in this course you were really talking about a lot of high level biological concepts, just trying to expose listeners and using cannabis sort of as your tool for this. It's sort of a path towards learning about all these different topics. Is that sort of the gist of what the goal was of the course?

Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. So cannabis was really, it was like the vehicle, it was like the, the selling point to get students to understand and be interested in these foundational biological concepts.

So I know you reached out to me, obviously that's how I met you. And we had a conversation via email about some of the curriculum that you were putting together. Can I ask, like, who else you reached out to? And you know, if you're not comfortable saying names, maybe you could talk about what sorts of topics or areas of expertise that these people had and kind of what sort of feedback you got.

Yeah, so I talk to people in a very diverse range of aspects within cannabis. So I talk to people in cultivation, so people who are involved in breeding, people who are involved in growing cannabis. I talked to people who were researching cannabis in different ways. I talked to people who were involved in product production and quality assurance within cannabis cultivation facility. I talked to people who were involved in medical cannabis, so doctors who were actually using this within their practice, their clinical practice, and different types of doctors too, who were focusing on different populations of patients. Yeah, I, I talked to a lot of different people and it started off kind of like it was a little bit of a snowball approach where I just started reaching out to people who I at first had connections to. So, for example, I use Cannabis myself. And so I reached out to the person who owns the store of the cannabis that, you know, that I usually go to, and she connected me to some people who grow it and, and then, you know, they connected me to some other. And as I kept doing these interviews, one question that I would always include in the interviews was, is there anyone else that you recommend I talk to? So, as you can imagine, this became almost exponential in my list of potential interviewees. And it really led me to lots of different types of people that I never would have come into contact with and I probably never would have even known about that aspect of cannabis. For example, you know, talking to someone who works on quality assurance in a cannabis facility, I guess I kind of knew that that sort of position existed, but it, you know, being able to actually talk to someone who does that really made it real. And yeah, it was, it was just such a unbelievable learning experience to talk to all of these different people.

Yeah. Now, one personal curiosity I had was, was there anything that you learned from this process that was really interesting that you were just unaware of? You mentioned the quality control, but from talking to all these people, was there something just like an interesting fact about cannabis or something that was unexpected in your research?

I mean, I just. Everything, honestly, everything. I went into this process thinking that I had a pretty good understanding of cannabis, but I realized I did not at all. And, and I think this really made it clear to me that when you are going to be teaching about something, you know, as a individual, you only have a limited understanding. You really need to go out and you need to talk to the people who are actually working with that topic in the real world. So I mean, I, I learned about, I didn't know about photoperiod sensitivity before doing these interviews. I didn't know about really the intricacies of the breeding process. That was just really fascinating. I learned about the importance of emission control, which became part of this, you know, this cultivation game that I incorporated into the, the course based on someone who was studying that. I never would have known that that was a big aspect of growing cannabis, you know, being manage the, the odors that are coming from the cultivation facility, especially in urban areas. Gosh, in all of the different ways that cannabis is used by, by humans in the, in the medical industry. So talking with these different doctors and really learning about how they were prescribing cannabis, the types of cannabis that they were prescribed, the, the process that they were using and, and the different types of indications that they were prescribing cannabis For, I mean, everything I, I just learned, I learned so much. It was incredible how much I learned. And I probably don't have to tell this to you, Tad, because you probably have some, a very similar experience with this podcast. I mean, probably everyone that you interview, you just, it's, it's little revelations that come up and you just, you learn so much by talking to someone in a 30 minute conversation. I found that I learned so much more in that 30 minute conversation, talking to these cannabis professionals than I ever could have by spending hours and hours of research on my own. And it was more understandable because it was in context, like they were talking about cannabis in real world ways and how they were interacting with it. And so it made the, what they were telling me even more understandable.

Yeah, you brought up two points that I just wanted to highlight. So one is this idea of real world experience, and that was one of the reasons I started this podcast, was because we have research happening at various universities now, but there's a huge gap between that and what's happening in reality in an actual working facility. And there's always these sacrifices that we have to make in any grow environment that just doesn't happen in these universities in a growth chamber where they can control every aspect of the grow and they have, you know, grant funding to be able to afford, you know, all the equipment that they need to create this, you know, quote unquote, perfect experiment. So the goal with the podcast is really to sort of bridge that gap between academia and research and share that, you know, more broadly with growers. But now I'm trying to bring in more growers to share about sort of their experiential experience, knowledge and wisdom, because I think that's really important too. And I'm really excited to talk about this cultivation game that you put together because it really sort of highlights this process in a very simplified, easy to understand manner. So, so that was one thing, but the other thing that you brought up was this idea of, of reaching out to various people in the industry and experts in their, you know, prospective fields. I've, I've done the same. And in my, in my experience, personal experience is people are really willing to share their knowledge and willing to talk to you and take a, take some time just because they, they're passionate about what they're doing. And, and so I, I would encourage people, if you read something or you find someone to, to, to try writing to them or, or reaching out to them and, you know, you will get rejected. I get rejected all the time. For this podcast with people. But at the same time, I'm amazed at how many people do get back to me. I mean, even people like yourself at university wanted to take some time to have this conversation about. About topics that. That, you know, that they're knowledgeable in. So, yeah, I just wanted to share a similar experience as what you. What you had in building this course.

Yeah. And. And I will echo that, because almost everyone that I reached out to agreed to talk to me, which I was so honored by, because I. I feel the same way. Wow. You're. You're giving your time and your knowledge and your expertise to me. That's just. It's like such a gift and a privilege to get. But people seem to be. People are happy to do it. People want to share about what they're doing. So I. I echo your. Your, you know, recommendation to reach out. If you. If you're interested in talking to someone, reach out.

Great. Well, let's move on to talk a little about this cultivation game that you put together, and maybe I can put something up on the podcast page that kind of shows this so people can see what I'm looking at right now. Can you take me through a little bit of this, this exercise that you did? It sounds like in. In person, in the class itself, a given day.

Yeah. So, actually, Tad. So this. This class activity, it's. I. I kind of think of it as kind of a game. It came out of my conversation with you and also from listening to your podcast episodes. And I must say, when I was doing interviews, you know, I would always ask people who. Someone I should talk to. Your name came up quite a bit, and your podcast came up quite a bit, and so.

Oh, that's amazing. Oh, well, thank you. I'm honored. Yeah.

So as I was talking to you and as I was listening to your podcast, you really helped me to understand a couple things. You helped me to understand that there are some really key aspects that are necessary for growing cannabis. So, for example, to grow cannabis, you need to provide the plants with light. You need to provide them with water and nutrients. You need to provide them with proper atmospheric conditions and pest management. And especially in the case of indoor growth, you know, these are all things that you really have to consider. You have to have as part of your. Your cultivation facility as, as. As you're in your growth. But beyond that, there are many, many different ways to be able to provide plants with light. There are many different ways to provide plants with nutrients and water with atmospheric conditions, and there's many different Ways to, you know, do pest management. So those were two key things that, that I've really learned from you and your podcast. And those were two things that I realized students need to, like this is what students need to know about growing. That there are these key foundational things that canvas plants need to grow. But there are, there's also a lot of different options within all of, all of those key factors. So I started to think about getting students to understand this in the form of a game, a cultivation facility game. So in this activity, I first, I first put, well, it's a, it's kind of a two stage activity. It involves two sets of groups. The first group is known as the expert group. So I split up students into these expert groups where they were assigned to really investigate and learn about one of the key variables. So there was a lighting group. And as a group, they had to do some research and figure out, okay, why is lighting so important? What, what do the plants get out of light that they need? And then I gave them some options for how light is often provided to plants in a cultivation facility. So the three major options that I gave them were fluorescent grow lights, hid, high density, oh, goodness. Discharge, high intensity discharge grow light. So this includes.

That's your HPS sort of approach.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. And then the third option I gave them was LED grow lights. So for each of those options, they had to research the pros and then also the cons, because none, no option is perfect. Every option comes with its, its pros and cons. So then, so in addition to a lighting group, I also had a pest management group. So their job was to really research pest management. What goes into that, why it's important. And then I gave them three options. So they had to look into the pros and cons of tape strips or monitoring cards, beneficial insects and pesticides and fungicides. And then I had another group for atmospheric conditions, another group for water and nutrient options. So I gave them, you know, they had to research media based systems, so inorganic media and organic soil, along with different irrigation systems, so hand watering, sprinkler system and drip irrigation. And then they also had to look into the pros and cons of different water based systems, so hydroponics, aeroponics and aquaponics. And then I, I also had an emissions control group because like I mentioned, this is something that came out of one of the interviews. I learned that this is an important aspect of growing cannabis emission control. So then I gave them a number of, of options for that group to also look at. The pros and cons. So once all of these groups had time to research their, their specific growth, growth factor, then I split them up into what's known as jigsaw groups. So this, this is an activity known as a jigsaw. And the concept is that in the second set of groups, the jigsaw groups, you have an expert from expert representative from each of the expert groups that's now coming together so that this new jigsaw group has all of the different pieces of the puzzle that they're going to need to do something in this case to create a cultivation facility. So now in the jigsaw groups there was an expert from the lighting, an expert from nutrient and water, an expert from atmosphere, an expert from emission control, an expert from pest management. And I gave them some time to just educate one another, inform one another about what the different options were and, you know, maybe share which one that they thought was best based on their understanding of the pros and the cons. And then as a group they had to make a choice about what they were going to choose for each of these major factors. And they also had to provide me with, you know, a one to two sentence explanation just to let me know what led them to that, that option. So that's, that was the gist of the game. And just one other thing to mention was before they came into class, I wanted them to have some sort of exposure to these different options and also to see, you know, what's, what cultivation actually looks like. So as a pre class assignment, I asked them to watch these little video clips of tours through some different types of cultivation facilities. And I really tried to give them videos of different types of facilities. So some were warehouses, some were greenhouses, they, some used hydroponics, some use organic soil, some use inorganic. And so they got to actually see what this looked like through these video tours and, and hear from the people that were actually growing cannabis and talking and they talked about the different parts of their facility and, you know, how it worked and so on. So they did come in with a little bit of background knowledge about each of these options.

Yeah, I love that this exercise or this game is structured around the idea of limiting factors because it's one of my favorite ways to approach cultivation in general is to look at what the limiting factor is. People always head straight to fertility, but a lot of times it can be your watering or your environment or your lighting and all of these things. And so it's all about management of these limiting factors. Factors. And so in that manner, I Think this exercise is really interesting. And you gave each group, you know, an imaginary what, $12, I think, or 12 money bags as your clients. It's shown here in the video. And then they have to make choices based on energy cost, yield and sustainability. And everything has sort of a rating. And it's interesting me, funny enough that aquaponics was the winning choice of the ones that were sent to me because it's probably the least common actual method of cultivation, especially commercially. It's just not very common. It's interesting that students gravitated towards that. Do you want to touch on that before we go over some of the options that people had?

Yeah. As far as the, like their choice for the aquaponics or just as the, the different results that came out from the students, what they chose.

I was thinking more in terms of aquaponics. But if you want to talk about the different results, I think that's ultimately what I want to get into here as we go through it because I think it's, it's kind of fascinating and we can talk about some of the options that people had to choose from on the various different topics.

Yeah, I mean, I was also really struck by how many groups chose aquaponics. Well, first of all, pretty. All of the groups chose a water based system. None of them chose organic soil or inorganic media. They all chose either aquaponics, hydroponics or aeroponics. And most of them, like you mentioned, aquaponics. And yeah, I, I thought this was quite interesting too. I don't quite know what to make out of it. From my understanding, this is quite rare in the, you know, it is.

There's a lot of challenges around it. It breaks my heart a little bit that they no one actual soil. And I feel like if I had 10 minutes in front of them, I could talk them all into it. But that's not the point of this exercise. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, and, and this is where it's, it's kind of curious to think about where they're coming up with these ideas because you know, they had just very quickly seen these different types of cultivation facilities, research looking at Internet sites, you know, Internet research looking at pros and cons. So I mean, ultimately what led them to these decisions was their own research, but also their, you know, their values. So some things that, that, that go into making these choices are definitely, you know, your context, your location, your budgetary constraints. Like you mentioned, I did give them a budgetary constraint, so gave them 12 money bags. And for each option there were, there was a cost associated with it. So for example, like with lighting, fluorescent grow lights, that was half a money bag, so they were cheaper if they wanted to choose the high intensity discharge grow lights, that was two money bags, so they were, they had to spend more for that type of lighting. And the LED grow lights, that was three money bags. So they had to make choices depending on the amount of upfront cost. I also gave gave them information about, you know, energy required to operate. So more energy required means more or higher ongoing operating costs and a higher carbon footprint. So if students were caring about, you know, energy required to operate, then that might have gone into their, their decision making process. I gave them information about yield. So some of these options, you know, are more conducive to, to higher yields than others. And then I gave them information about sustainability, so how sustainable each of these options were. So yeah, students, you know, it's, it's quite interesting to think about what was going into their decision making process. It was their understanding of the pros and cons, their own values associated with maybe cost effectiveness, sustainability, energy usage. So there was something though about aquaponics that, that was really drawing them.

Well, just on the lighting exercise alone, since you brought that up, I mean, the choice is really between sort of this, the HID lights and LEDs just based on the light intensity and yields. This is decision that I see facilities have to face in the real world all the time is can I afford the upfront cost of, you know, going with LED lights? And a lot of that is dependent on the energy provider. And if they offer rebates and things like that, a lot of times LED lights can become more affordable. But then looking at, because of the mass amount of electrical costs associated with running an indoor facility, we just did a, we just put together an estimate for a company here in Washington that's one of the largest indoor producers and they would have an an ROI by switching to LEDs, because they initially set up as HPs, you know, 10 years ago, in less than a year, just, just off the electrical, not counting the yields for raising their overall, you know, PPFT levels, but just on the, just on the electrical savings alone. And the rebates from the electrical company, their energy provider would give them an ROI of less than a year. But this is a real decision. I mean, do I spend the money up front to have a more efficient way of growing or am I sort of tapped out on resources and setting up this facility and the infrastructure to where I have to go with a, you know, a more afford, affordable option like you know, HPS initially knowing that I'm going to end up paying a lot more down the road in electrical and it's not as sustainable. So I love that you put that in there. And then on the aquaponics side, interesting enough, I looked into aquaponics myself because I think I, I think as someone who's been to UBC and actually dated someone from UBC for a little while, I kind of fit with that mentality and kind of understand this sort of student that would be drawn there. I looked into aquaponics myself and found that in Washington state, where I live, I would have to have a heated indoor space. I couldn't run aquaponics in my greenhouse to keep the fish alive through the winter in a sustainable fashion. So I moved away from that for my. In vegetable growing and all of that. But it was something that I was drawn to initially for that sort of idealism of the whole, of the whole concept.

Yeah, yeah. So that, that's quite interesting. So maybe it would work in some locations and, and not in others. And this really drives home this, you know, personalized approach to making these decisions. You, you have to take into account the context where, what are your constraints, what are your goals? Do you want to scale up or, or not? You know, would you be able to scale up if you, if you chose, what are your values? What do you most care about? Like you mentioned, you know, the student population, they might be bringing in certain values that are driving their decisions.

Yeah. So with your permission, I'll share these so people can kind of see this online and get an idea of, of real life choices that I think every facility should be thinking about. So if you, I mean, even if you're just at the very beginning levels of setting up a cultivation facility, this kind of lists out the sorts of, of questions you should be asking yourself in a very simplified manner in terms of the choices that you'll be making as you move forward. But one of the reasons that I really wanted to get you on the podcast, and I think in terms of actionable, useful information for growers that listen to the podcast, is this next part of it is this lecture you put together on evaluating sources of cannabis information. And I think this speaks more broadly across all of society. Nowadays ways were just inundated with information on the Internet. You know, obviously your students were influenced by the information that they read around aquaponics in their research to go that direction. And I think that's really interesting. It makes me wonder, how do we best. I guess the question I'm Asking is how do we best evaluate a product or best evaluate an authoritative source of information on the Internet to know that it's, you know, factual or really good quality information. Why don't we start there? I think that's a great, great topic to really dive into.

Oh yeah. I mean that, that is just, it's, that's so interesting. This is another thing that I got from you in my conversation with you and actually from several other people that I talked to. Several people talked about the importance of being able to eval information, especially about cannabis because there's just so much, there's some really great information out there and there's just junk misinformation. And so, you know, how do you sep, how do you separate that out? How do you separate out maybe marketing from useful information? You know, there's so much marketing out there that's, that's disguised as information, but it's actually really trying to sell something. And learning to be a discerning consumer of information is just a power. It's a powerful, useful tool in today's society. So this is something that, you know, I got from you and from, from others. And I decided then to, that it had to be included in the course. I had to include training and practice with information evaluation in the course. And so I tried to incorporate it in different ways throughout the term. So in, in the course we started off very early on. I think this was the, the fourth class session. We did a lesson specifically on information evaluation. And I first asked students to do an Internet search using a curie, a query about cannabis so they could use whatever Internet, you know, search engine they wanted. But I had them all type in the same query. So I had them type in does CBD help to treat anxiety? Because we were kind of talking, that was something that we're talking about in the class. And then once they type that in and hit the return button, I had them evaluate the top 10 websites that were listed in their results results and to determine which source, which results from their search they thought was most reliable or trustworthy and which was least reliable or trustworthy and to explain their choices. So for example, what characteristics made them think that a site that they chose was most reliable and what characteristics made them think that a site that they chose is least reliable was actually least reliable. So they said some really interesting things. So some of the things that they mentioned as far as what they thought made something reliable was that it provided high quality sources as evidence for claims. If it was a peer reviewed article that was published in A reputable academic journal. So students really put a lot of weight in that, you know, peer reviewed published articles. If it was written or reviewed by someone who was a credentialed expert in the field, or if it was a reputable organization, they would cite things like.gov or edu sources as being more reputable. If the information was comprehensive and fact based, if it didn't appear to be biased and if the site, you know, the, the source looked professional in appearance. And then some things that they said made them think a site was unreliable was if it was written by someone without credentialed expertise in the field. So a lot of them pointed to a certain site that was kind of a blog that was written by someone who didn't have any sort of credentialed expertise in cbd. If there were grammar or sentence structure issues, if it didn't cite where the information was coming from when they were making a claim, or if it cited poor quality evidence such as like a blog or something, if the information was too general or lacked specifics, if it was anecdotal, such as, you know, just one person's experience and if they saw a lot of advertising or a very heavy handed effort to try to sell products. So these were things that, that they said and that's great. Yeah. And this is actually what I probably would have told them to look for.

Yeah, I mean, I agree with everything that they said. I think that was a very, those are very thoughtful answers on their part. In my personal experience, I think in the cannabis industry especially, we put, put too much emphasis on this idea of recognized authority or who the industry lifts up based on number of followers or views around social media. Because I think some of the best and smartest people I see in this industry don't necessarily have a large social media following because their focus is on research or education or they're a successful grower and they're spending their time running a facility. They're not posting videos every day on social media. So that, that is the one thing that I think, not to your students, but just in general to this industry that I do push back on a little bit in regards to liability is I tend to, I tend to put less emphasis on recognized authority. Unless this person, you know, unless we're talking about a researcher, we're talking about someone who is, has put in the time and really has been shown to have peer reviewed work that they're promoting. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

Yeah, no, no, that's, that's Quite interesting. Yeah, I, I can definitely see that. And, and I think probably cannabis is a special situation in that case.

Yeah. And, and obviously, you know, I think about this from the lens of someone that that look turns to on my podcast. I'm obviously a for profit company that puts together this podcast. I have a, a skew and bias towards living soils. Even though I, I do try to get people on that will talk about other topics. There's definitely a heavy lean and content towards organics and I do also, you know, manufacture soils and products and I think people should take take that into account when evaluating the quality of, of you know, the podcast is a source of information and I don't think that that discredits the information that's provided on here, but I think it needs to be viewed through that lens just to be objective and to be fair. There's podcasts that I've published that I. Now if I could wave a magic wand, I would go back and probably delete as, as I've evolved as a cultivator and my understanding of the product or of the, of the industry. I mean, because I think some people do, did come onto the podcast and either shared information that I don't feel was fully accurate. You know, there, there was sort of a gray area there on some of the information they shared, or it may have been focused more around a product or technology than I would have necessarily liked to see. If that makes sense.

Yeah, no, that's, that's really great that you have that sort of self awareness about this too and that you are aware of your own biases and expectations. And, and I think that is, that's one of the key aspects of being able to effectively evaluate sources is just be. We all come in with our own biases. We all have it. This is something I had to deal with too. As I was creating this course. I bumped up against my own biases several times and. But being aware of them allows you to then be able to overcome them or make it so that they're not clouding your judgment in, in that evaluation or in the information that you're taking. You're not discounting something that is actually quite reputable and credible and you're not putting unnecessary stock in something that you just, you want to be true or you, you, you want to believe that.

Yeah, I mean, I agree with you on that. I think that's well said. Did you want to dive into some of these scenarios that you created in terms of talking about this idea of evaluating a source? Would that be a Good. You think use of time or is there another way to approach it?

Well, well, actually tat, I'm wondering because, you know, after we had kind of chatted a little bit through email and I was really fast, you had shared with me your process for evaluating products and I thought it was really, really quite insightful and I, I really appreciated your process. So I'm wondering if you can share a little bit about your, I mean.

I'm happy to share that. Yeah, yeah, I can share that. I will say I, I, I put this together pretty fast. I did go back and pull up the email so I could see what I wrote you. So I didn't put as much thought into it, but it's sort of ingrained into me now that it didn't, it didn't take me more than 10 minutes to write this up because it's something that I guess I spent more time thinking about than I even realized. So, sure, I'll, I'll read off this list if, if that, if you think that would be good and then maybe you can give me your feedback on it and tell me, you know, good, bad, in areas that I might have missed or what, maybe what my bias is as I, as I share this with you because I, I found it, it's sort of an interesting process. So my cognitive process when evaluating product online and I hope that other people would have a similar process, even if the steps are a little different, is I always start from a process of skepticism. And this is me picturing myself walking around an industry trade show. I don't know why. In my head that's just where I went to as I was going through, through this. And so I always start from perspective of skepticism and then I collect data information to sort of change my mind. So I always assume that the product doesn't work and then they or myself has to convince myself, oh no, this, this might have a possibility. I always like to start reading the ingredient label and see what the person decided to put on the package. And if most of it is, you know, proprietary, that's a pretty big red flag and that's going to be a hurdle that's going to be very, very challenging. Challenging for me to get past. That's not to say it's a deal breaker, but it, it's going to be a pretty substantial hurdle if there's not a lot of information about that product online beyond the website. So as other people are not talking about it and it makes its marketing peels are primarily testimonials or side by side Photos, I just don't put a lot of weight in those as credible sources. And I know that's something that your students mentioned as well. If it's a company I've not heard of before or is not established in the horticulture or agricultural industries and is just marketing to cannabis, that to me is a bit of a red flag just because they. That it's such a narrow industry focus. If it's a, let's see, what else? If it's a nutrient or plant growth enhancer, but has a low amount of fertility. So not a lot of NPK or claims to have a new or better mode of delivery or assimilation by the plant. You know, you hear things like nanotechnology are micronized or. I had a guy telling me about his prehistoric carbon source, and it turned out it was. He was just talking about humic acid, but we were talking about dinosaurs, you know, So a lot of it is just the framing of it. I mean, these terms exist for a reason. Some of these, some of these technologies are very valid, but it's definitely something I'm a little more skeptical around. And then I like to see if a product is actually registered, you know, if, if it's supposed to be registered with the Washington State Department of Agricultural, Oregon Department of Ag, California Department of Ag. That tells to me, that shows me that, you know, this company's done their due diligence to be legally marketed and sold. And I can also read what they registered the product for in terms of heavy metals and PK values, what their guaranteed analysis is. And then if I've gotten this far and I'm still interested, then I look at is this product closing an ecological loop or is it more sustainable than anything that I'm doing right now? And here I think of things like biochar, where we're reclaiming carbon, or insect frass, where we're able to take a waste product that the insects then can consume, emit from our compost, and make into a usable nutrient product. Is there less of a fossil fuel cost to get the same nutrients or fertility that I would get? And here I think of something like guano, which is, you know, shipped from overseas, has a huge fossil fuel cost, is damaging to the local ecology. Even though it's organic, it's not necessarily something that I would necessarily choose to use. So if I get through all of that and I'm still interested, then I'll set up a trial and if I get a positive response from that, then I'll figure out from there if what what limiting factor in my grow was that our cultivation practices was that product addressing? And then I'll say, okay, is there a more affordable way for me to get there than this product? And if not, then this product is something that I want to add to my list. And so it's quite a, quite an extensive process. And then the last thing I mentioned on here that I look for is the network of people that I trust. So, for example, when it comes to entomology or IPM stuff, if my friend Suzanne Wainwright Evans, the bug lady, if she recommends it, that to me is usually enough. Just because she is so authoritative to me in terms of my respect for her knowledge and expertise in her field that I don't, I don't need to question it. And I would skip all of the above steps that I listed for that reason because I know she's already done all that for me much more thoroughly than I could be based on her expertise. And there are a few people in the industry that I turn to like that, but it's a very select level list. So. Okay, I've been talking for a long time. That was, that was sort of all of it. What are your thoughts?

I, Well, I think that this is, I, I was so happy that you shared this with me. I think it's so insightful. It really showcases all of your experience over, you know, over years, like honing this process and figuring out what has worked and, you know, what have been some of the, you know, things that have led you astray in the past and like, and putting that in now to your process so that you don't make those same mistakes in the future. And I especially because I've, you know, I listen to your podcast quite a bit and I know that you refer to Suzanne a lot. And so that one in particular I also think is so important for people to have some sort of like an anchor source of, you know, someone, a trusted anchor source to go to when you're unsure. And I think this can be especially helpful, especially if you're not very familiar with that given field or context. And, and you know, this could be an expert kind of like Suzanne, for you, it could be a reputable organization or company that's proven their credibility to you and that, that you really trust. I mean, I think that's the main thing. You find someone who you know that you can trust and if you're unsure, you reach out to them. And so you don't have to, you know, reinvent the wheel. You don't have to do all this Research yourself. You can, you know, find someone and, and it can be different people in different contexts that, that can serve as this anchor source for you. Another thing that you mentioned that I think is so important is starting from a place of skepticism. You know, go into viewing each new source or product or whatever with a healthy dose of skepticism, not taking anything at face value, but expecting that it will need to convince you rather than you giving it the benefit of the doubt. So, yeah, I, I, I love your list. I think it's fabulous. Maybe a couple other things that I might add to a list.

Yeah.

That we, you know, we've already talked about is be aware of your biases and expectations going in. You know, we all bring our own baggage based on our previous experience, what we want to hear, fear. And this can either cause us to disregard something credible or to overlook glaring red flags, both of which will prevent us from being able to properly evaluate that, that information or that source. And as humans, you know, we're very prone to something called confirmation bias. It's this tendency to seek out and favor things that will confirm or support what we already believe or what we want to believe. But, but it's quite dangerous. It can cloud our judgment. So just being aware of, you know, biases and expectations going in. Another thing I might say is compare the information with other sources. Don't just stop with one source, but, you know, compare it with, with other things. If you're seeing something that you know is way out from what you've seen elsewhere, you know, that could be a red flag. And yeah, just, just keep practicing, Keep practicing. It's being able to evaluate is like, it's, it's a skill that you develop over time. It's like these eyes that you develop over time and you just, you get better. And, and I can, I could tell with your list like that was the result of you practicing evaluating for a very long time. You, you've honed, you've honed your evaluation eyes.

Well, it's because I made mistakes. You know, I've, when I first came into this industry, because I, I came, I came to cannabis sort of in a unique fashion. I wasn't initially a cannabis user. I'd never grown cannabis and my parents had owned a nursery and landscaping business for 20 years at this point. So I grew up around plants, but not around cannabis necessarily, though, though my father was pretty big cannabis user, I found out later. But basically when I first started researching it, I went into my first hydro shop and at the time there was, there was medical program but it was pretty small in Washington state. There was no recreational program. And so walking in there, I felt like. I felt like a target. Like maybe there was a cop waiting around the corner sort of a thing. It was like a park down the street sort of thing. A feeling. It was dirty. There were no plants in the shop, which was really weird to me because the shop was geared toward growing plants, but yet there were no plants in there. But there were all these bottles that had, you know, really cool stickers of fake giant plants or like, women in scantily clad outfits. Nothing like the stuff that my parents were selling in their garden center at their nurse plant nursery. And, and so I was wondering, like, should I be using these things with my vegetables? Like, are these pro. What makes these products so unique? They're so expensive. I was really excited at first. I was like, oh, my gosh, I think I've discovered something here. And then as I started learning more, I realized I don't need all these things 1. At the time, I couldn't afford them anyway, so I had to come up with alternative ways. And for me, that was learning. Doing research on. On Internet forums at the time because there wasn't a lot of authoritative information around cannabis, seeing what other people were having success with. And now I feel like sort of social media has turned into this echo chamber where one company might get pretty big in a given space. Everyone echoes their sentiments and it becomes very product focused instead of necessarily looking at the technology and figuring out how we can do things more sustainably or without using all of these, you know, products. And part of that, you know, that's what led me to some of these things. Like when I think about going on the WSDA or the CDFA website, when I go look up the products of some of these companies and find what information they have around heavy metals or around NPK or if they're even registered. That, to me, was a way of sort of validating or discrediting what I was seeing on social media. Because social media can be very convincing. And it's very easy, I think, to go to a social media, you know, an Instagram account or YouTube page and see all the people echoing and commenting and validating what the person is saying. And I've seen it on my pages too. I'm not. This isn't unique to, to me.

But.

I don't think that provides a very authoritative or reputable credential in terms of what's actually being shared in the cannabis space.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And thank you for Sharing your experience, too. I, you know, this is, this is a journey that we have to go on to, you know, figure out how to evaluate. Like, this is a whole new skill in this day and age. And the more that we can share with each other tips, the, the easier that this gets. So thank you for, for sharing those.

Well, one of the things that I discovered too, was by going to graduate school, even though I was studying special education, I was forced to read a lot of research articles. A lot of them, you know, were on behavioral techniques and things around education, you know, similar to, I think some of the stuff that you studied in, in, in your educational journey. It wasn't so much about the research that I read, but it was about learning how to read these papers and understanding what sorts of conclusions I can really draw from them and what I can't. Because one thing, one other issue that I see is people will read a paper, and we see this in the news all the time with these sensationalized headlines, and people will take a research paper and then draw all of these health implications or, you know, cultivation decisions around things that their research really wasn't saying. And I think that's a really interesting thing to talk about.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you have to be so careful with, you know, news articles about cannabis science because like you said, you know, first of all, the titles are so sensationalized and overblown, and oftentimes the reporting is, you know, it's not, they might not be pointing out those red flags or those, those issues with the study, or they might be, you know, interpreting the results in ways that are not appropriate or, you know, not associated with the scale that was done with the study itself. I, I read. So there's A quote by Dr. Peter Grinspoon. This is one of the, the people that I, I did consult with through the, the process of creating this course. And there's a quote from a book that he wrote that was just, I thought, really well, encapsulated this unique problem with cannabis. And maybe I'll share this with you because I just, I really like this quote. So he said, unfortunately, due to its polemicized history, cannabis is not in the category of regular science, where you just give the benefit of the doubt and trust that everything's kosher. With cannabis, you always have to look beyond the headlines, read the entire study, check on the references, try to discern the perhaps unconscious agenda of the researchers and take note of the social context in which the research is being performed, as well as its funding source and the affiliation of the authors, it's just, it's very complicated. So even being able to like, like you said, read these papers and be able to glean the information from them and, and to evalu, evaluate the research, because not all cannabis research is created equal. There's some very, very high quality research that's being done and there's some low quality research that's being done that's also being published in peer reviewed journals. So it's, it's really up to us as consumers of information to be, you know, evaluate, to have these evaluation skills and to make these decisions. We cannot depend on other people to be doing this for us because it leads us astray. It's, it's unfortunate, but that's just, that is the case with cannabis.

Yeah. And I see this on the cultivation side around products or concepts. For example, I, I grew up around the aerated compost tea. My parents, my dad started an aerated compost tea business, was one of the very first people doing this. When it first was a thing, you know, with the soul Food Web and Dr. Ingham and the research around it was very mixed. And so you have one side, you had Dr. Ingham sharing all this research of how it's suppressing disease and having all these benefits and it's a miraculous silver bullet. And then on the other side, you had someone like Dr. Linda Chalker Scott saying that compost tea is snake oil and it doesn't work. And they both had research to support what they were saying. Personally, I think all the research around this topic is, is not good because you're talking about a biological entity that's constantly changing and you can't recreate because of the fact that this microbiology is gonna be different in every brew. So there's no way you can have a good control around it. But it's interesting how research can be spun to either support or discredit, you know, a topic or a technology. In this case, arid compost tea. And I don't think either side was, is totally right in this case. I think, I think the middle ground is really where this lies. But it was a matter of going through and looking at the methodology that they used. How did they brew the tea, how, how many, you know, how many plants were they applied to. Like, I went and gave a talk to a group of landscapers, you know, 15 years ago, and Dr. Lynchock Scott was one of the speakers there and she shared a trial that she was talking about for why she was recommending wood mulches in gardens and was based on A trial that she did, and that's not to say that wood mulches are bad, but in the trial, she only had 10 plants and she didn't know the name of the plant that she used. And so the idea of me of applying this broadly, this concept broadly across all of landscaping, in this case, or, you know, it didn't, it wasn't authoritative enough or the methodology wasn't strong enough for me to feel like you could make that jump. And so maybe I would look to other. Is there further research to support this that other people have done where they've used, you know, a variety of plants or where they've used different mulches? And that's when I'd start to look into, like, does this have credibility? I guess. And, and I hope people really are doing this process and looking beyond social media for their answers. And I, I, or even this podcast or other, or the sources of information, as credible as they may sound. I try, like you said, with our biases, I try to apply my bias to this podcast when I think about what sort of people I have on the podcast or what sort of topics I talk about. But I know it's not perfect. And like I've said before, I've made multiple mistakes over the course because I've done, you know, over a hundred podcasts now, and, and some of them, I absolutely know, had bias. And we're sharing information that I no longer feel is necessarily current in, in our, in our body of knowledge.

Yeah, yeah. No, thank you for sharing that. And I, I think that speaks to, you know, all of this is a journey and it's all a process. And this has been your, this podcast has been your learning process, too.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I, I want to echo what you mentioned about, you know, not putting all of your trust in one study. You have to remember, one study is just one study. And, you know, different studies vary in quality. It could be a poor quality study. So you definitely don't want to put your trust all in that one study. The, it's much better to look at the, the whole of the field, look at all of the different research that's, that has been done and you put it all together because, like, like you said, it's, it's probably somewhere in the middle. It's, it's not. It's very. Things tend to be much more complex than we think that they are. And if you just are looking at one study, you're looking at a very simplified, maybe a simplified methodology or study system or like you said, maybe there's only a few plants in there. But looking at, you know, a larger breadth of studies and seeing how they relate to one another, that's, That's, I think, a really important aspect of getting closer and closer and closer to the truth.

So what, what do you think is in store at UBC in terms of this, this course? So, first of all, let's talk about what. What do you feel like your students really took away from the course when you went back and, and really evaluated it? It. What were your thoughts about this first. The first time through?

I, I thought it was. It was really fabulous. I mean, I didn't go in wanting students to leave with a lot of information like that was not important to me. I really wanted them to shift their mindset about cannabis. I wanted them to be able to think about it in a more holistic, more complex way. And I, I think we were able to do that by all different topics that we covered by, you know, looking at different sources, really interrogating where information is coming from, looking at things in different ways, different perspectives. And the, the way that I could get a sense for if their mindset was shifting about cannabis was at the very beginning of the, the course, I had them respond to three statements, and they had to respond to it based on a, like a spectrum. So the first statement was, well, the spectrum was between 0 to 100. 0 being cannabis has no benefits. And 100, it was cannabis has lots of benefits, can be used for a lot of things. So they had to pick a number between 0 and 100 between that spectrum. And then I. The second one I gave them was 0 to 100. 0 being cannabis has no harms. And then 100 was cannabis is very harmful. And they had to pick a number and explain. And then the last one I gave them was 0 to 100. 0 was cannabis has legalization of cannabis because I'm in Canada, so cannabis is legally, federally legal here. So zero was cannabis legalization has been negative for society. And then 100 was cannabis canvas. Legalization has been positive for society. So they had to choose a number and explain. And I looked at the numbers they chose at the beginning of class and the numbers that they chose at the end of class, and it was really, really interesting to see their perspectives change and to see their, their explanations become much more comprehensive, much more complex. They were, they were struggling a lot, a lot more with, with really finding a number because they had, they had a greater understanding of the complexity and the nuance associated with cannabis. So that was, that was my Overall goal to shift their mindset because, you know, we've all been ex. We, you know, we've been exposed to so much negative messaging, and we tend. We tend to have a limited understanding of cannabis based on the messaging that we have come across throughout, you know, our lives, but having the ability to expand our understanding. Again, the more, you know, the closer it gets you to the truth. It's a more messy truth, but it gets you.

And I think in. In theory, with this exercise, the point is not necessarily for their answers to move in one direction or another. It's. It's just for them to be. To make a more educated choice for how they would. How they would measure things. What. What were your findings, though, if you're open to sharing? If. If you did sort of average them out, what direction did they move on their answers? From where to where?

Yeah, so for the first one about the benefits of cannabis, they shifted up. So they shifted towards cannabis has more benefits for the harms. They shifted down where. And no one ended the course saying, like, zero. Cannabis has zero harms. No one said that. But they shifted their conception of the harmful aspect of cannabis down. And then for the last one, as far as society, they. There was a slight shift towards it being positive. Legalization is positive, and a lot of that came from, you know, we talked about, you know, pesticide use and, you know, heavy metals and, you know, things that are now being regulated because of the legalization of cannabis, which, you know, is positive for society. And there's all these sociological aspects. You know, people are not going to prison for this anymore, and families are not dealing with all the, you know, the. The fallout of the criminal system. And. But also, I realized early on that students were coming in with very, very negative views of cannabis. I. I asked them in one of the first assignments to really reflect on the messages that they had received about cannabis throughout their lives. You know, in school, from family, from religious institutions, from, you know, media, the news and movies and everything. And they. They were coming in with very negative connotations. So it makes sense to me because of, you know, the biases that were. They were bringing in, the negative biases that they were bringing in based on all of these different messages that they had received throughout their lifetime. That, like, that makes sense to me as you learn more, that their understanding of the benefits would increase as they were exposed to positive messaging, you know, to balance that out and their understanding of the harms. You know, it's. It's not as harmful as maybe they had been taught to Bleed.

It's interesting the demographic that would choose to take a course in called the Biology of Cannabis that maybe necessarily was skewed towards thinking of it as a harmful, negative thing. Yeah, plant.

Yeah, I was quite surprised by that too. I was thinking why. I'm curious why you took this course if you're coming in, you know, with some negative feelings about it. But I think it just speaks to just how interesting, how fascinating cannabis is and why it was such a effective, beautiful vehicle to use to get students to understand biology. We're couching it within something that maybe they have negative feelings about, but they're still very interesting interested in.

That's wonderful. So do you see this course continuing at ubc?

Yes, I would love to see it continue on. I'm going to be co teaching it with my co course creator, the person, the research faculty who helped me create it. We'll be co teaching it in January, in the spring. So yeah, it will at least have one more offering.

Well, I think it's so great and I appreciate you sort of sharing your findings and process with us here today. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Yeah, me too. And thank you for sharing as well, Tad. I think your processes and you know, what you've sharing what you've learned over time is so important and I'm just, I'm so honored to be on this podcast. I love it. I'm a huge fan.

That was Christine Goodheart and you are listening to the Cannabis Cultivation and Science Podcast. Don't forget to check out the podcast page at www.kisorganics.com. just click on the Learn tab, then podcast. And if you want access to podcasts as soon as they are recorded along with additional content and video, we do have a Patreon account. We also do book clubs, hangouts and have a private discord channel for members. The Kiss Organics website also offers a variety of soil amendments, lighting fixtures, beneficial insects and the highest quality commercial soils on the market. We carefully research all our products we offer and manufacture to make sure they are science based and meet our standard of quality. Thanks for listening.