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06/06/2018 08:30 AMSusannah Graedel’s successful career as a naturalist, teacher, and scientific illustrator began with the most unlikely of creatures: an earthworm.
“I was in a 10th grade biology class and we dissected an earthworm,” she says. “I remember it as clear as day. I absolutely fell in love with the earthworm and the intricacy of its structure. I knew that day that I would major in zoology.”
And indeed, she did-moving on from her Detroit high school science classroom to the University of Michigan where Susannah graduated with that zoology major.
It was the start of a life-long passion that eventually led to her current role, sharing her love of nature with local adults and children at Bauer Park.
“Teaching comes naturally to me and I love it. I love teaching three-year-olds, I love teaching teens, I love teaching adults,” she says. “I’m always excited when I’m outside. My enthusiasm, my wonder, are things I truly feel, and I enjoy getting people excited about nature.”
A Natural Treasure
Susannah developed the Bauer Park environmental education program in 1997, serving as its coordinator and a committee member until 2007.
“It was such great fun! When we started, we taught the classes in the house and I would have to bring all the table lamps from my house to get enough light,” she says.
“I taught summer camp programs for 4- to 7-year-olds based on children’s literature including Charlotte’s Web and Winnie-the-Pooh, where we’d turn the forest into the Hundred Acre Wood. I still have people come up to me in the post office or downtown and tell me they remember those programs.”
Today, the classroom at Bauer Park has a dedicated home in the converted garage.
“In 2005, we got a grant to equip it and so I contacted every nature center in Connecticut and asked, ‘If you could start a lab classroom from scratch, what would you buy?’ We got the best lists and it was very, very fun.”
For the past 11 years, she has taught many classes with her upcoming programs including Beginning Birding by Ear on Sunday, June 10; Family Nature Sketching on Sunday, July 8; and Wearable Bauer Nature Art on Friday, Aug. 17. On Sunday, July 15, families can try their hand at building and sailing their own boat on the Bauer Park pond.
“Everyone can come and be a nautical engineer,” Susannah says. “There’s no string or rope—nothing man-made—so it’s really fun to see what people can create just using what they find in nature—and to see if their boat floats on the pond.”
Susannah enjoys teaching pond study, orienteering, and farming to students from all of Madison’s elementary schools at Bauer Park in the spring and fall, as well as off-site program at Circle Beach and West Wharf. She also established the bluebird trail at Bauer Park with 20 boxes providing homes safe from predators for the nesting birds.
Many people love, study, and appreciate nature, however few can bring it to life on the page as Susannah can. Interested in learning more about her study subjects, she took a couple of natural science illustration classes in the 1990s and sparked a new passion.
“When I started, I never drawn anything. My love of nature just morphed into a love of drawing. I took to it immediately. I hung on every word my teachers said and between classes, I worked all week on my illustrations,” she says.
Susannah completed a certificate in botanical illustration from the New York Botanical Gardens. She is a founding faculty member of the Connecticut Natural Science Illustrators and currently teaches classes in the field at Yale University’s Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven.
“We give students the tools to share their passion on paper. If they have a pine cone, we help them make that pine cone come alive on the page and they can then share what they love about the pine cone with the world,” she says. “We take full advantage of Yale’s gardens and greenhouses, as well as all the Peabody’s collections to study specimens up close. The Peabody Museum really is a wonderful place to teach.”
The Poetry of Earth
After graduating college, Susannah moved to the east coast and worked as a lab technician at Harvard Medical School. When she returned to Michigan, two significant events altered her life path: She met her husband, Tom, and she was gifted a bird feeder.
“I was instantly fascinated watching the birds and so I got a pair of binoculars to see them up close. For my birthday, I went on a country bird walk, and nature just hit me in the face,” she says.
“What’s not to love about birds? Humans have always wanted to fly, so [birds] are intriguing creatures. Birds have the same number of brain cells as humans, they are just smaller and configured differently. They are very social and they communicate with each other. Birds are so colorful, so beautiful. Their behavior is fascinating…and they are so musical. They are part of everyone’s world, however little attention you may pay to them.”
The Graedels settled in New Jersey where Susannah completed her master’s degree in ecology and evolutionary biology at Rutgers University while Tom worked at Bell Laboratories and pioneered the field of industrial ecology.
“I worked from 10 years as a naturalist with the New Jersey Audubon and taught school and public programs. Over two years, I got my license for bird banding [the delicate process of attaching bands to the feet of birds for research purposes] and took up a leadership role with the Eastern Bird Banding Association,” Susannah says.
Here they raised their two daughters, Laura and Martha—their youngest daughter named after Susannah’s ancestor, Martha Ingalls Carrier, who was convicted and executed during the 1692 Salem witch trials.
In 1997, Tom accepted a professor position in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University, and the Graedels became Connecticut residents.
So, why did they choose to live in Madison?
“It was the birds,” Susannah says. “We looked at apartments in New Haven near Yale, but when we found our house on Legend Hill looking out over five miles of uninterrupted forest, we fell in love and bought it.”
In 2010, Tom took a sabbatical position in Melbourne, Australia where Susannah says she loved hiking in the Dandenong Ranges and getting up close and personal with a crocodile in Kakadu National Park. In 2012, they spent a few months in South Africa, and have also enjoyed visiting England.
Susannah also teaches nature classes at the Community Nursery School in Guilford, and in 2007, she established the shoreline’s Take Time Out for Poetry group, bringing together people who appreciate poetry for an informal reading of their favorite works.
“Poetry is excellence; it’s artistry, complexity, and deceptive simplicity. Some of the pieces are stunning and we sit there amazed. It’s like entering a different world,” Susannah says.
The poetry group meets on the third Thursday of every month from 12:30 to 2 p.m. at the Willoughby Wallace Memorial Library, 146 Thimble Island Road, Branford.
“We have members from North Haven, Madison, Guilford, Stony Creek, and along the shoreline. Some people who have been coming since the beginning, and last meeting we had three new people. Everyone is welcome!”
Bauer Park, 257 Copse Road, Madison offers a wide range of nature programs for children and adults. For information including the 2018 summer schedule, call 203-245-5623 or visit www.madisonct.org/recreation. Register online or at the Madison Beach & Recreation office, 8 Campus Drive.