As you all know, I’m the least nature-y person around. But since I was a Florida teen, it occasionally surprises me when I bump into someone who doesn’t know what a mangrove is. (Not that this topic comes up very often in conversation anyway, but you get my drift.)

For those less fortunate, a mangrove is a tropical tree that grows in brackish water and is equipped to deal not only with salt but also massive erosion (because tides) and occasional submersion (because flooding). They are cool to look at; part of their ability to cope with such a cruddy environment involves a big root network above the water line that helps with taking in air and excreting salt.

Like most plants, there are a slew of species, but Florida mostly has red, black and white mangroves. Chopping them up usually requires a permit and a professional. They’re good as storm buffers, and they’re great for ecosystems—although not as broadly interesting as California’s tide pools, because you can’t see diddly from the surface.

I learned everything I’ve forgotten about mangroves from Mr. Deere in my high school marine biology class. He was an uptight little man who was probably in the wrong profession for his nature. He was very serious, he wanted everyone to put forth maximum effort all the time, and he seemed to not realize that he was teaching a class that people took to avoid having to take one of the harder and more math-oriented science courses. This, of course, meant he got a mix of some serious kids who didn’t want a C on their record (hello, that would be me) and an at least equal number of kids who seriously didn’t care about anything, least of all estuary ecosystems.

Nevertheless, every year he took his entire role book of students on a field trip to do some hands-on examination of what he’d been talking about all year. Everyone trooped on to a bus and got hauled an hour away to the evocatively named Cockroach Bay. I mean, really, it’s a losing battle from the jump when you take kids to a place with a name like that. It should be noted, however, that Cockroach Bay does not have cockroaches. It doesn’t even have an inordinate number of palmetto bugs—the larger, blinder, and flight-capable relative of the cockroach. The place got its name because it used to be crawling with horseshoe crabs, which Spanish explorers assumed were aquatic relatives of roaches. Of course, poor Mr. Deere had to explain not only that detail to squeamish girls but also that they were unlikely to be attacked by leeches or alligators, at least on this particular trip.

I cannot for the life of me remember much of what we did—it was a lot of taking notes about plants and water bugs. I think it was sort of scavenger hunt-y in nature: try to find this item, describe it in detail, and check it off your list. But it was a fun trip, despite Mr. Deere being annoyed that high-energy kids like playing in water as much as studying it. He got out of his head for a bit and when he got excited about some flora or fauna, it did rub off and he got his wish for complete focus from everyone for at least a few minutes.

My friend Dionna took this trip twice—once as a student, and then again a few years later as a chaperone. She told me the coolest thing she saw was when they pulled a blowfish out of the water and it started squealing—sort of like a balloon being deflated. I don’t remember anything that exciting happening when I went.

When I got older and moved back to Sarasota, I would occasionally make a good-faith effort to do the nature thing and visit a nature area like Myakka State Park. I never really enjoyed it as much as Mr. Deere. I preferred the beach, where I could see what was coming. Swamps and rivers are too murky; I don’t know what’s in them. And all those tangled root lines of mangroves, plus the spiky nature of palmettos just made me even more ill at ease; no telling what kind of bitey bugs were lurking in there. Top it off with mosquitoes, and I think we have identified just why I am NOT a nature-y person!