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Mya Thompson

Co-Director of Engagement in Science and Nature at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, founder of Bird Academy, and author of "Ruby's Birds" and the graphic novel "Winged Heroes."

Nov 4, 2026

MasonHOST
4:05
So one that you most want to see again and one that you haven't seen.
4:09
Okay, great.
4:10
What do I most want to see? Okay, here's one I wanted to see and I didn't think I would really ever get to see, but I got to see it and it was a gift.
4:17
So a blue-footed booby.
4:20
I thought was just in the Galapagos Islands, way off, you know, in the ocean.
4:24
And I would never be able to see it.
4:25
But I happen to be, I have some family who lives in Mexico.
MasonHOST
8:50
Do you like birding by sight or birding by ear?
MasonHOST
12:47
How do you make science fun enough that people actually want to learn it?
12:51
Well, I like to ask people and play with people to see what's fun.
12:56
So we have made various games, educational games, and one of them is called Flat to the Future, and one of them is called Beast Box, and one of them is called Bird Song Hero.
13:07
And each time, we did start with a thought about, oh, we really like to help people be more confident in understanding bird sounds.
13:16
Or, for example, with Flat to the Future, we started thinking, oh, we really want people to understand and feel more confident about what different things happened in the evolution between dinosaurs and birds.
13:27
And for Beast Box, we wanted to think about, oh, well, an ecosystem has a soundscape that is unique and can be celebrated.
13:34
So each time we started with that.
MasonHOST
16:24
How did you decide what science to put in the book and what to leave out? Okay.

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