BOXERWOOD RISING:

Meet Mary LePere, environmental scientist

Throughout our 25th year, we’ll be sharing stories of young people whose Boxerwood experiences shaped their passions and vocations. Have a young friend to recommend? Contact Catherine Epstein, creator of this series: catherine@boxerwood.org

When Mary LePere, now a PhD candidate in environmental science, first began teaching conservation as a teen counselor at Boxerwood, she didn’t have high expectations. A Buena Vista resident attending Parry McCluer High School at the time, she was working at one of our summer camps and wondered how much her campers would really care about the environment. "You think, 'They're just little kids,'" she recalled. One day, she took a group of children down to the garden’s runoff pond, and the campers were a little rowdy. But on their walk, they saw a snake. It was “slowly, quietly slithering on the ground,” she said. “And these kids who could not be quiet, could not pay attention, could not listen, just sat there silently for maybe two minutes while this snake crossed the path. Everyone was like, ‘Wow, this is beautiful.’”

Mary attributes this mesmerized response to the power of a close, physical relationship with the natural world – something she describes as “getting your boots on the ground”: “A lot of the time people look at things from far away,” she explained, “and you don’t feel as connected to it.” Mary believes that moments like these help children understand that “these animals are not objects. They are individuals that experience life.” 

Since then, Mary has put her own boots on the ground in some extraordinary – and not always comfortable – locations. As a freshman at Old Dominion University, she went on a study away program to ​​Utqiagvik in Alaska, the northernmost town in the United States. She and her classmates spent a week gathering ice cores, examining water quality, and observing the landscape. “It was freezing cold days. It got down to like negative 35,” she said. “But I loved every second of it…It showed me exactly what I wanted my future to look like.” 

Her time in Utqiagvik generated just the kind of close connections she values. “I’d always loved watching Arctic documentaries and learning about polar bears,” she said, “and now to stand there and actually be in the environment, and look a polar bear in the eyes, it was incredible.” Mary also formed connections with the Inuit people of Utqiagvik, who she described as “the kindest people I’ve ever met. They were so willing to give of their time and their resources, and they were so happy that we were there doing science. It was wonderful.” 

The Inuit people of Utqiagvik have lived there for generations. Mary therefore got to perceive a “full picture” of the community – including how it had changed over the years. The town relies on whaling for food, and community members have noticed differences “in the season of when the whales show up, and how many show up, and how healthy they are.” They also see polar bears daily, who recently “aren’t as fat. They’re not as healthy, and they’re willing to come further into town.” Ice is also melting faster. As Mary described, “The area is very marshy, so…they have to be careful. There are lakes they used to be able to walk over, but now it’s hit or miss.” 

Mary’s experience in Utqiagvik generated a strong personal passion for the Arctic. In August, she’ll begin a PhD program in Environmental Science at Syracuse University, where she’ll be studying glacial hydrology. Each summer of her PhD, she’ll have the opportunity to spend a month in Greenland to conduct her research. 

To obtain more experience, she’s currently working in a lab at ODU’s Bio-optical Research Group, which uses satellite imagery to examine seagrass. “Seagrass is very important,” Mary explained. “It’s a habitat for blue crabs, which are one of the largest exports for the Chesapeake Bay.” Like many organisms in the Arctic, she explained, “these grasses are not reacting as well as we would like to climate change.” She also noted that, because seagrass is underwater, many people don’t think about its health or the effects that might have on their lives. “You think…‘Oh it’s just sand under the water,’” she said. “But there are these huge meadows of seagrass that are the size of Norfolk, Virginia…and they’re basically a hotel for these underwater critters. I almost compare it to deforestation. People care so much about that because they can see it…but with the seagrass, it’s kind of hidden.”

Her work with seagrass is not Mary’s first close encounter with the Chesapeake Bay. In fact, experiencing the Bay with Boxerwood is where her love of environmental science began. In 7th grade, Mary was among a busload of middle students selected for Boxerwood’s annual trip to the Bay. In this beloved program, students spend 3-days on a Bay island, exploring Bay ecosystems with Boxerwood educators and our partners from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “That was kind of the ‘a-ha’ moment for me,” she recalled. “Just to be connected and put your boots on the ground, and get to see the impacts in real time of what the world is actually like, and what’s happening. That was incredible.” 

Other Boxerwood experiences deepened Mary’s passion for nature and science. She vividly remembers, for instance, the worm bin that Boxerwood educators brought to her school in Buena Vista. “It was so funny,” she said, “because there were some kids who would stick their hands straight in, and there were others who wanted nothing to do with it. But you scoop one up and you show it to a kid, and they’re like, ‘Wait a minute, I want to do that too.’ They’re not dirty. They’re not nasty little creatures. They have a very important job.” 

Mary says that these early experiences with Boxerwood inspired her to “want to do something for the Earth. And want to learn more. Boxerwood was very instrumental in putting more curiosity in me.” She remembers that, when someone would ask a question of a Boxerwood educator, “They would never just say, ‘Well I don’t know.’ The answer was always, ‘Well, we don’t know that but let’s figure it out. Let’s learn.’” In that way, she says, Boxerwood fostered “an innate curiosity, and an appreciation for the world around me.” 

Finally, Mary described the unique sense of welcome and belonging she felt in Boxerwood’s woodland garden. “You just show up and walk in,” she explained. “I haven’t found another space like that in the same way. It always felt like it was available when you needed it…I would love to walk around and go to the pond and just listen to the frogs. It’s like, how could I not want to keep this alive?”

These days, in the midst of her research, Mary gets the same sense of peace and inspiration amongst the seagrass. “One of the perks of studying seagrass is that it’s beautiful,” she explained. “I’ve gotten the chance to go snorkeling in the seagrass a few times now, and it’s just so peaceful to drift along. Once again, it makes you feel connected. To put your fins in the water.”

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