Written by Michael Miller, current 2022-23 master’s student
It’s official! I have finally begun my graduate school journey to become an environmental educator through Goshen College’s Master of Arts in Environmental Education program at Merry Lea.
This new adventure begins 11 years after graduating from Goshen College with a B.A. in Environmental Science and starting a family with my wife Jennifer of 19 years. Over the next year, I will be living and studying at Merry Lea, a 1,198-acre nature preserve, with the ultimate goal of teaching environmental science at the high school level.
So how did I get to this point in the journey and what made me decide to become an educator?
After finishing coursework the fall of 2011, I began working as a restoration specialist for Blue Heron Ministries: a small native lands restoration company located in Angola, Ind. where I interned the previous summer.
At Blue Heron Ministries, I applied knowledge that I acquired over the previous 4 years and began to fall in love with the intricacies of prairie, savanna and wetland ecosystems.
However, in 2014 my wife was offered her dream job in the Washington, D.C. metro area, so we relocated. Not long after the move, I accepted a position as a conservation specialist with the Prince William Soil & Water Conservation District in Manassas, Va. where I helped the citizens of Prince County resolve non-point source pollution through best management practices in rural and suburban settings.
Non-point source pollution occurs when runoff from rain and snowmelt carries pollutants from a wide area into waterways: rivers, streams, wetlands, groundwater or lakes.
Both of these jobs had a fair amount of educational components with a wide range of age groups. During these community events that involved environmental education, I realized that not only do I have a love for implementing environmental science, but I have a passion for teaching and sharing my knowledge.
After some family discussions, we moved back to the midwest so I can transition into becoming an environmental educator! And thanks to accommodating telework policies resulting from the pandemic, my wife can continue her career as I begin this master’s program along with four other individuals for the 2022-23 school year.
Getting Reacquainted with an Old Friend
Before living in Virginia, I spent the bulk of my time in prairies, oak-hickory savannas, and wetlands (especially fens) in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, even when I wasn’t actively restoring or maintaining them.
So when I learned that each grad student must choose an ecosystem to observe over several weeks for our Natural History of the Southern Great Lakes summer course, I naturally chose Luckey’s Landing: a location where a savanna and fen meet a wooded area along High Lake’s shores.
Within seconds of walking into this unique area that is full of life, I knew I made the right choice as it felt like I was meeting with an old friend.
With this familiar friend, my memory is continually refreshed of species that I learned from previous experiences; but I also get to dive into a more intense relationship and learning experience with this ecosystem and the plethora of species that call this place home. I hope to encounter the Massasauga Rattlesnake during my observations.
But what makes this site so interesting? Luckey’s Landing is dominated by a mixture of mainly warm-season grasses, sedges and forbs that are in both a grassland and oak/hickory savanna setting. This habitat formed due to the amount of sunlight available to the plant community and the historic fluctuation of the water table. Over time, this allowed both wetland and upland plants to grow in the same area along with the species that depend on them to survive.