SNR News Story

By Ronica Stromberg

Hannah Miller never considered teaching as a career, but now a naturalist educator at Fontenelle Forest in Bellevue, she has found teaching children about nature to be deeply fulfilling.

"I ended up falling in love with it, and now that's what I'm doing for five and a half years," she said. "I love it, I'm happy, and I'm not leaving anytime soon."

Miller graduated with a fisheries and wildlife degree from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 2017 with expansive interests outside education. She said that, at that time, she thought the most important work she could do to conserve and protect the Earth's resources would be to go into research to provide data that could influence policy.

"Now, for me, what I feel is most impactful is having kids come outside and ending up falling in love with being outside, because I see hundreds of kids a year," she said. "If I can get 10 of them to really fall in love with the outdoors and want to help protect it, that's 10 people that can help make change in their community in the future or advocate for their local park or lead litter cleanups."

She spends her days at Fontenelle Forest, a 2,100-acre private, nonprofit nature center, researching and preparing lessons plans and teaching 3- to 5-year-olds in her Mudpies program. She leads other programs outside the standard work week, field trips, summer camps and family and adult hikes. Almost all of her work is in education, but she also cares for the turtle shown in programs, manages the center’s bird feeders and helps organize the Christmas bird count in Bellevue.

"One of my favorite parts of the job is that we get to have our hands in so many buckets and get to bounce off on so many topics and lead programs about so many different things," she said. "It keeps me enriched, and then I, of course, get to dive into little research rabbit holes beforehand and refresh my memory or learn something new."

She loves working for a small nonprofit, she said, because it allows her to try new things and follow her interests. She described herself as having always been a "dabbler," even in college.

At Nebraska, she took part in the Wildlife Club and Range Management Club, traveling to a rangeland conference in Utah to take a test on her knowledge of plants. She also took two School of Natural Resources trips, to Namibia and Botswana. She interned at the Lincoln Children's Zoo one summer, feeding and caring for animals. She provided the animals with enrichment--new activities, toys and foods to keep them healthy and happy and prevent boredom.

In all of these experiences, she never singled out one plant or animal she wanted to focus her career on. She was willing to try most any kind of work, she said, and that ended up benefiting her now.

"I've always had expansive interests in lots of different things, and that has definitely paid off, in that I have a lot of knowledge about so many random different things," she said. "I can kind of be bounced around and fill in for people or provide information for my coworkers."

Still, after college, she had faced difficulty finding a full-time, permanent position, she said. She took temporary work in the teacher naturalist program at Pioneers Park Nature Center in Lincoln. Besides leading children on field trips of the prairie, she worked at the front desk, took care of animals and began teaching preschool classes.

After almost two years there, she moved to Alliance to do field work in conservation with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. She worked there about a year but, missing education work, left for Bellevue and a six-month position with Fontenelle Forest. When that ended, she went to the Humane Society in Omaha for six months and then took her current position at Fontenelle when it opened up.

Miller advised students seeking a position like hers to keep an open mind and be flexible, willing to try new things and move.

"You never know what you're going to be good at or what you're going to end up really falling in love with if you don't try it and try new things," she said.

She acknowledged, though, that the uncertainty with temporary work can be stressful.

"That's definitely something that I had to grapple with," she said. "I really enjoyed doing temporary work and part-time work and trying all these different things, but it was stressful, moving and finding jobs and constantly being applying for things and keeping your eyes open for different things."

Students possibly interested in work at Fontenelle Forest can apply for paid internships in land stewardship or as summer camp counselors. The land stewardship tasks involve natural resources work like trail maintenance and invasive species control.

Miller identified good communication skills and curiosity as being helpful traits in her line of work. She said even though she’s an introvert, she talks a lot on the job to provide a safe and welcoming environment for the public.

"I'm one of those people,” she said. “I talk a lot and help them feel more comfortable and at-home outside, because the Earth is our home. It's the only place we've got, and helping people feel more comfortable or more interested in it or more passionate about it has been so, so fulfilling. I do think I make a difference."