You also can hear her love for children when you talk to her about her work. She works on a SOEI newsletter through the TWA website (Timber Wolf Alliance) especially geared towards kids. “In the long run education starts early. What children learn carries through the rest of their lives. They make better decisions if they learn when they are young.” Jennifer Webster’s parents taught her about appreciating the outdoors when she was younger and she thoroughly enjoys sharing her knowledge of natural history with younger generations.
Jennifer was in high school when she first participated in a Northland College Wild Careers Camp and never forgot about it. “My first impression was that I loved the people and the campus.” Her parents were also attracted to Northland College, as her mentor for the outdoors and were thrilled that she applied to this college.
In her freshman year, Jennifer started out at the front desk at the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute doing basic office work, such as copying, and then she became part of the Wolf Research Team. Paula Jean boasted to Pam Troxell about Webster and got the ball rolling. For the past three years at SOEI, Jennifer has been given more and more responsibilities over editing and coordinating TWA and PR projects. After two years with TWA under the direction of Pam Troxell, she has the responsibility of the care of the Traveling Wolf Display, writing hundreds of letters to schools in Upper Michigan to see which ones are interested in having the educational display placed in their library. There are about sixty schools in the U.P. that have already had the Traveling Wolf Display, and she hopes in the future the display will reach Lower Michigan and Wisconsin schools as well.
Presently, Jennifer is working for the Cable Natural History Museum, just about an hour south of Ashland, through a internship program called F.L.I.P., teaching high school students how to explore different science careers. You can tell how much she is getting pleasure from this internship in Cable, from the twinkle in her eyes and her huge smile. Jennifer has been able to use her love for writing to make up natural history articles as educational tools. She says her trick to catch their attention, is to “sugar-coat scientific facts and create stories to make them more appealing to her readers…and the kids think it’s cool.”
And Webster knows that she leaves a good impression on the young people that she meets with the Traveling Wolf Display and the “Paw Prints” newsletter projects, too. Kids can learn to count the variety of wolf tracks pasted all over the newsletter, and recognize different animals by their prints from: white-tailed deer, black bear, raccoon, wolf, human, and mountain lions. And she describes the tracking process in a very simple manner that anyone can read.
I asked Jennifer what she plans on doing after graduation and she replied, “Ideally, I would like to work at a Raptor (otherwise known as birds of prey) Center doing research and education in Wisconsin, Idaho, or Missouri.” Her resume of internships and volunteer work are already extraordinary. She has done work at the Audubon Center in Sandstone, Minnesota working with kids and raptors, worked for the Nature Conservatory on prairies, and volunteered at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Ohio. Jennifer has found that this summer internship through the Cable Natural History Museum and her classes at Northland has been very fun. “It has turned out wonderfully.” It is amazing that this chain of events started from her participation in the Wild Careers Camp.
The SOEI has been a huge stepping stone for Webster. “Having worked here has taught me good communication skills. Updating the website was a big project to get done because we need to constantly revise working documents about wolf populations; how they are doing, and what their numbers are, to keep the public aware… working on the website and doing PR work at the SOEI will also help me with future contacts. The staff at SOEI also share and are open to offering research and employment connections with students.”
She would like to recommend new Northland Students to take advantage of a great opportunity to advance themselves. “The Institute is an untapped resource right now.” Jennifer anticipates Northland and the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute will branch out in the future and make more use of each other.
Jennifer Webster has a very gentle presence about her, which makes the perfect advocate for the environment and animals and indescribably compassionate. We should remember her after she leaves us, “as someone who was very dedicated about her goals and went for them…while having fun in the process.”
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