The Maryland Master Naturalist program has a textbook length, thoroughly researched, full-color published handbook.
The Texas Master Naturalist program has one as well.
My own home state’s Oregon Master Naturalist program has… not got one (but I very much hope this changes sometime soon).
However the California Naturalist program does, and it was recently updated and released in a second edition of it.
The California Naturalist Handbook (Second Edition) by Greg de Nevers, Deborah Stanger Edelman, and Adina Merenlender not only provides a core textbook for all those seeking certification as a California Naturalist but also well serves as a very handy overview of the state’s natural history.
Substantially updated and expanded from the original 2013 edition, the new second edition provides very user-friendly introductions to and overviews of the plant and animal communities in the various ecoregions of the state, as well as information on the state’s different climates and the effect of climate change upon them, presentations of indigenous knowledge from the First Nations groups in the state, and biographical information about important naturalists who contributed to the expansion of knowledge about the natural history of California.
Even though I do not live in California, I have been finding this new California Naturalist Handbook to be very interesting indeed, not only because I occasionally visit the state and always like to have a foundation for what I see there, but also because it offers interesting and effective models I can adapt to explanations of the natural history of my own home state of Oregon.
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