In Openlands, Jerry Adelmann joined an organization whose interests aligned perfectly with his own: nature, culture, historic preservation, social equity. Since then, Jerry has been a ninja nature practitioner who’s…

Janet Voight grew up in Iowa, far from the ocean. Yet as a young adult, she found her way to the study of marine organisms, especially the cephalopods: that strange and wonderful system that includes snails, clams, squids, nautilus, and octopuses…

When Dr. Jalene LaMontagne was growing up, her family moved every three to five years. “I was a military brat,” she says. For a while they lived…

Most scientists study animals while they’re stationary. It’s a lot easier that way. But Melina Hale studies fish in motion. She wants to find out what’s happening inside their brains—and what signals are traveling through their system from brain to fin and fin to brain—that allow movement to occur…

Sylvie Anglin’s epiphany of how nature can integrate into both the curriculum and character of a classroom occurred the year she co-taught with Carol Brindley, a veteran teacher of first and second graders…

As a child, Peggy Mason was a biology prodigy. Today, as a neurobiologist, Peggy is still working with mammals, but instead of preserving their skins, she’s studying whether they experience empathy and act to help one another…

When Johana Goyes Vallejos travelled to Borneo , she discovered that instead of boy frogs making all the noise—which is how things typically go in frog world—it was female voices piercing the dark night air…

Like most Chicagoans, Jin enjoyed Lake Michigan in a general way for many years. But because the lake is consistently present—a backdrop to the spectacle of the city—it’s possible for residents to forget the lake is even there…

The father of Philip Enquist was a rebel who didn’t appreciate shortly-cropped mowed lawns, and he allowed the grass in the front yard of their Southern California home to grow long. The neighbors didn’t share his aesthetic…