Budding Biologist has quite a unique back-story. The two co-founders, Dr. Kristine (Kris) Callis-Duehl and Katy Castronovo, were unpleasantly surprised by the “biological inaccuracies of children’s books.”¹ Rather than just being upset and moving on, they decided to do something about it. So, in 2012, Katy an Kris wrote and illustrated what would be the first book in the Budding Biologist, Am I an Insect?

From their humble beginnings, Budding Biologist has blossomed into “a science-based, beautifully illustrated book and video game series.”² Building on the success of their first book, Budding Biologist launched a Kickstarter campaign that would eventually successfully fund their second book, Where Do I Live?³

Further building on their early successes, Budding Biologist is gearing up for the March 2014 release of their first educational video game, Lizard Island (right). Lizard Island was built for students from grades one through five, and is in line with the Next Generation Science Standards, as well as Common Core Standards.⁴

We had a chance to speak with Karen Boley, the Education Director at Budding Biologist, during FETC. Karen told us a little bit about Budding Biologist and their mission, and gave us a live demo of Lizard Island:

Check out all of our coverage of  the 2014 Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC).