1. The Imagine Neighborhood

No Filter with Dr. Jennie Warmouth

Hi everybody! It’s me, Count Vacula, bringing you a brand-new No Filter! I’m so excited to introduce you to this week’s guest, Dr. Jennie Warmouth! She’s a second-grade teacher, a college professor, and the co-author of a terrific book called Teacher Trade! AND she’s also a research scientist who works with animals and kids to study empathy—which is when we use our kindness, our experiences, and our imaginations to understand how others are feeling. She’s been to almost every continent on earth, and she’s met all kinds of animals—from dogs and cats to walruses and even elephants! Dr. Jennie and I talked about very intellectual, highly scientific topics such as why our dogs’ toes smell like corn chips, and whether walruses smell worse than black bears, and . . . okay, okay, maybe we talked about smells a lot, but we covered bunches of other fun things, too! Dr. Jennie taught me a lot about kindness, and doing research, and how animal feelings aren’t so different from human (or even vampire robot vacuum cleaner) feelings. Most of all, I learned that whether it’s a new friend or a new animal, when we take the time to get to know each other we’ll always discover that we have lots of things in common! I’m really glad I got to meet Dr. Jennie, and I think you’ll like meeting her too. Thank you to everyone who sent me a letter or a drawing last week, and for everybody else—I can’t wait to hear from you, too! Just tell your grown-up what you want to ask me, or have them scan or photograph your drawings, and they can send everything to me at kind@imagineneighborhood.org. I’ll have another No Filter ready for you all soon, and until then, have a great week, and I’ll be seeing you around The Imagine Neighborhood™! Your friend, Count Vacula