In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers have a passion for science that can’t be suppressed.

Part 1: As a zoo volunteer, Lisa Yeager adores sharing her love of the wild, but one zoo patron is ruining that for her.

Lisa Yeager started her career as an environmental educator and bookstore manager in Anchorage, AK. She shifted to build a career in project management after earning her MBA at the University of Washington. She currently works as a Program Manager for Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center where she works to bring innovation and transformational change to business practices and collaboration.  Lisa built her life in Seattle after attending UW because where else are you within a day of ocean, sound, volcano, shrub-steppe, lakes and two mountain ranges? With 10+ years as an informal education volunteer at Woodland Park Zoo, she is exploring ways to translate her business background and a recent second master’s in biology to support climate change education and advocacy. She serves on the governing council for the National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation, and received a Cee-Change fellowship and grant funding from the North American Association of Environmental Education. She is a previous board member of the International Applied Improvisation Network. She is the co-founder of Yes and Nature Collaborative (climateconversations.net), which combines scientific data, communication theory, and improvisational theater techniques to help people have more effective conversations about climate change and nature.

Part 2: Anna yearns to be a scientist, but her strict mormon family doesn’t want her to become one.

Anna is a naturalist and aquatic entomologist. Going to school in Utah gave her the opportunity for a backyard mountain classroom. She got to learn about migration patterns of mule deer, moose, elk, and pronghorn through GPS collaring initiatives led by the Department of Natural Resources. Her coursework helped her learn how to identify all the plants and animals native to the desert, valley, and mountainous regions of Utah. Monitoring the restoration of a canyon after wildfires, flash floods, and debris flows bolstered her knowledge of the resilience of native flora and fauna to historical natural disaster regimes. She found purpose, love, and life in those experiences. Now Anna gets to connect to the parks and people within NYC, as well as challenge herself through a doctoral program studying the evolutionary history of stoneflies. These insects are fundamental to maintaining the health and balance of freshwater ecosystems, but many populations around the globe are experiencing substantial declines due to human interference and climate change.

*For privacy reasons, Anna’s last name has been withheld.

Episode Transcript

Part 1

I'm standing in the corner of a repurposed 10x10‑foot shack on a rainy fall day in Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo. Huddled under a space heater, I'm facing my nemesis in the form of a poor, beleaguered mom who is trying desperately not to show how afraid she is of Knox, the sweet and harmless corn snake I'm holding.

Knox is beautiful. Tan with some red striping, about four feet long, named for their tendency to be found near grain silos, attracted to the mice that are there.

Now, I'm just guessing this woman is mom, because she and the little girl that she's with, carbon copies. Both of them have soft brown hair, warm brown eyes. The girl looks to be four or five, clearly excited about the opportunity to get up close with one of our ambassador animals.

Well, mom, she has a look of terror and disgust on her face.

Now, why is this poor woman my nemesis? I'm a lifelong zoo nerd and volunteer informal educator. That means my role is to help people get closer to, care and connect with wilderness conservation and wild things. And the hours of training that I've been through have taught me a lot of really great stuff to share about these ambassador animals.

Having these kind of up‑close encounters inspire empathy and curiosity. Zoos have done research to prove this.

I don't need any other studies, because as a kid growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, my zoo did exactly that for me. My Aunt Helen would take me there regularly. She was the one person and it was the one place where I could explore nature at my own pace and on my own terms.

Our adventures included me and Aunt Helen watching a beaver give birth in the children's zoo one afternoon. Me and Aunt Helen getting doused by an elephant at the end of a long summer day. Aunt Helen's stepping away and letting me explore whatever captures my young imagination, lingering for however long I'd like with whatever critter or curiosity captures my attention.

In every magical, wild experience I've had since then, trekking in the Himalaya, life for a year on a remote lake in the boundary waters of Minnesota, face‑to‑face, eye‑to‑eye encounters with coastal grizzlies in Alaska, all of that I can trace back to these seemingly small, innocuous encounters I had as a kid at the zoo.

So now, when I'm volunteering at the zoo, I'm looking to pay that forward. Looking to provide whatever spark might just be waiting to ignite for whoever the wild might otherwise have a hard time reaching.

And it works. I have amazing conversations when I have our ambassador animals out. Sometimes, Knox might be curious about the guest, flicking his tongue, raising his head to get a little closer look at whoever he's interested in. A small boy in his father's arms, blonde curly hair, twinkling blue eyes, who lock eyes on Knox and start flicking his own tongue.

It's easy to be curious and wonder about that animal's perspective when we're up close with no barriers between us.

I had to go through six Saturdays of training to even be considered to do this role, after already being a zoo volunteer for years. One of my favorite staff members, Frances, got permission to do my training herself. We holed up in one of the zoo's conference rooms, working with the ambassador animals, endangered Egyptian tortoise, snakes like Knox, Madagascar hissing cockroaches.

I learned all manner of natural history to be able to have conversations with guests about whatever might capture their imagination. I'm so enthusiastic that I fail to notice that a number of volunteers take a hard pass at this opportunity. Turtles, snakes, bugs, not everybody's idea of a good time, and that would have been particularly useful to have included in the training. Because what am I supposed to do when faced with someone's terror?

That's why this poor woman, on that rainy fall day, is my nemesis.

Apparently, half the population can be considered anxious around snakes. And 3% of us have a full‑on phobia. Now, 3% doesn't sound like much, right? But on a given day, I'm going to see upwards of 200 guests at the zoo, so I see somebody, usually three or more somebodies, who have that phobia.

Remember, I'm on a mission. I'm looking to plant that seed of curiosity that was planted for me. Because being curious and caring about nature in the wild is what sparks people to take action to conserve it. So, anytime I'm faced with this abject fear, it hits me hard. Because it means, instead of inspiring wonder about the wild, I'm driving people away.

The more I try to say or do, the worse it seems to get. One summer day, it's warm, so I'm outside with our gray‑banded king snake Hidalgo. A large family comes up and they're chattering, they're very animated. They're speaking in a foreign language, so I can't tell what they're saying, but I do see that one guy in the middle isn't saying anything because he's staring at Hidalgo.

One by one, in small groups, his family members come up. They follow my instructions, “Use your two science fingers to stroke Hidalgo on his back,” and then they drift off.

He's still there, furrowed brow, staring. I don't know what's going to happen.

Then all of a sudden, propelled by bravado, it seems, he dashes across the trail. And in this overzealous attempt at overcoming his fear, he aims three full‑handed swats at Hidalgo's back.

“Whoa,” I say. I end up improvising this squat‑and‑pivot maneuver to rescue poor Hidalgo while the guy runs off. He doesn't mean any harm, but the more encounters that I have like this, the more perplexed I am about how or whether I can ever win people like this over to the wild side.

So, on that rainy fall day, the little girl is very eager. Comes over, follows my instructions closely, "Use your two science fingers." She strokes Knox on the back, clearly feeling an affection and affinity for him.

"Come feel, Mama!"

Mom is frozen. She's trying to control her expression but, clearly, she's panicked. She is engaged in a fierce struggle internally. She does not want to pass this fear on to her little girl.

The girl beams at her for what seems like an eternity. Mom takes some deep breaths, reaching to find her composure.

“Oh, honey, Mommy's a little afraid of snakes.”

What am I supposed to do? Cite statistics? Talk about the benefits of snakes and ecosystem services? Reassure her that it's safe? I know that an explanation is not going to help, but I do not know what will.

I take my own deep breath, feel my feet firmly grounded, and from deep within, a voice comes to me and says simply, “Shh.”

Something clicks for me in that moment. It becomes clear that my job is energetic, as much as anything, about holding space for that mom and her little girl. Slowing down time and distraction, quietly, calmly, the little girl crosses the room, gently takes her mom's hand and slowly leads her back to me, moving to place her mom's two science fingers on Knox.

Mom is tense in anticipation of that point of contact, but she relaxes when she feels Knox.

“Oh,” she says, "that's not what I thought at all." She is transformed. A door opened. Fear replaced with wonder.

When I can get out of my own way and listen to that voice, it usually knows what it's talking about. Logic, words, explanation, those still have a place in my toolkit, but that's not going to be what inspires wonder or breaks through anyone's wall of fear. Being still, quiet, open to possibility, and letting that flow, well, that opens a door for me too.

Letting go of being the teacher needing to have the right answers lets me get out of the way, stay present, and let the wild find its own way working through what's already there.

Thank you.

Part 2

I grew up in the dry agricultural San Joaquin Valley of California, where I quickly fell in love with being outside. I have memories of running wildly through the orchards and picking up fallen almonds to find weevil larvae inside. And my mother used to dress me up in these floral dresses and comb out my hair so it was this bright blonde poof, which attracted bees to land on me and gave me the chance to tell other children that bees won't hurt you unless you hurt them.

I switched between wanting to become a geologist, then archaeologist, then chemist, then marine biologist, but I always knew that I loved science.

I grew up in a strict Mormon household. When I became 16, my mother quickly labeled me as a bad person. To her, I was rebellious, ungrateful, sinful, lazy and this freeloader. But in reality, I was just depressed. I had just gained a group of friends who I finally felt like I belonged in and she quickly disapproved of them because they were not Mormon.

One day, she came into my room sobbing and directly told me that I would never become a scientist and that she did not want to have a relationship with me. I was 16 and this would plague me for years. I looked into her apprehensive and distressed face and said nothing, as I often would resort to silence in these situations and would just feel defeated and worthless.

Once I became 17, I got into almost every university that I applied to for an undergraduate education, but my parents quickly informed me that they were going to cut me off unless I went to the private Mormon university located in Utah, Brigham Young University or BYU.

The months following as I approached my decision, my mother would hysterically cry about how I was going to stray further from the path and reach damnation if I went to any other university than BYU. She argued that I was going to fall into a spiral of drug abuse or be sexually assaulted and frantically constructed posters that lined the walls of my house with stats emphasizing that BYU was the best university of any others. I knew my decision about where to get a college education had been made for me.

Now, I am living in Utah in the dorms at BYU. I had struggled with depression during my teenage years, but this was a whole different monster. The psychological torture of knowing that I was forced to go to this conservative Christian university for the next four years caused me to feel incredibly hopeless, like an outsider, a fraud and alone.

I had signed myself up for therapy, but also determined that I was going to end my life by the conclusion of my freshman year. I did not feel loved by my parents or have a group of friends to fall back on anymore. I didn't even have autonomy and everything around me was centered around being a righteous Mormon, and it was hell on earth.

That was until a guest speaker came into one of my beginner‑level science courses and told students about a two‑week long, Plant and Wildlife science‑based study abroad was happening in Costa Rica that summer and there were available scholarships for this that I was eligible for.

I decided, “Okay, I'll go on this trip and then end my life afterwards. It'll be like a last hurrah.”

We traveled around the entire country, and this was my first exposure to the idea that one could study insects for their career. The bugs there were the most intricate, beautiful creatures I had ever seen in my entire life. I was catching insects for a professor on the trip who had a bad knee and the thrill of swinging a butterfly net and successfully catching harlequin beetles, black witch moths, and giant locusts was so fun and freeing. The biodiversity exceeded anything I had previously witnessed.

By the end of this short trip, I was sitting by a river admiring the grand layers of the rainforest and I thought about how I was only 19. I didn't know shit about this world since I was so sheltered growing up. There were so many ecosystems I had never experienced. This trip gave me a spark for life.

Back at the hostel, I was admiring these huge ants that were crawling down the side of the wall and my friend Sarah asked me if I was going to take the entomology course. I had never actually heard the word entomology before this, but quickly enrolled.

The next semester, I joined the research lab of the entomology professor and began working on this project that would change my life. In 2018, three separate wildfires converged into one massive megafire that burned thousands of kilometers of rangelands in Utah, and I had the primary role to understand the community composition responses of the aquatic insects that were within the affected watershed.

This was the most amazing job that I could have asked for. Every month for the next three years, I was going out on backcountry roads in a giant 12‑person van nicknamed the Green Beast, jumping into rivers and collecting the insects that resided within them, then bringing them back to the lab at BYU and identifying them.

I fell in love with aquatic insects. I had found a purpose.

Through my time monitoring and collecting data on these aquatic insect communities, I learned about how resilient and adaptive they really are. They were able to fully recover their communities only within a couple of years following these natural disasters, and it was beautiful.

Now, I'm 20, and I had found someone to fall in love with named Alexander. I had never felt this way before, and he gave me even more purpose. Together, we would go camping, hiking, road tripping, catch bugs together, go to farmer's markets. We would do everything together. And although I was still going to BYU on weekdays, I could look forward to the freedom of weekends with my beloved Alexander.

This was the first time I had ever really explored my sexuality as well, and Alex and I knew that I had to get on birth control. I promptly received an IUD from the BYU Student Health Center, where I had to pay for everything out of pocket because I was not getting married and, therefore, the BYU health insurance would not pay for it. Of course, I didn't want my parents to know of the intimacies of my relationship.

A month after the procedure, I began to feel really, really sick. I had no idea what was wrong with me, but my abdomen was swelling. I had fevers of 103. I couldn't eat anything without vomiting and I was dizzy anytime I tried to stand up.

I had scheduled an appointment with the BYU Student Health Center on May 18th, but on that day, I woke up feeling like I was truly going to die. My roommate and best friend drove me to the ER and the next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital after being in a coma for five days.

I looked down at my stomach and I had a six‑and‑a‑half inch scar running down from my belly button. A doctor came in the room to tell me that I had experienced septic shock and coded on the operation table, where doctors had to perform an emergency surgery of cutting into my abdominal cavity that revealed pools and pools of infectious fluid that had originated from an unsanitary procedure of an IUD insertion.

He told me that due to the intense damage that the infection caused, I was now infertile. I honestly smiled in this moment, as I had been told my entire life, growing up in the Mormon church, that my role as a woman was to multiply and replenish the earth. But this role and this weight had been lifted in an instant.

I fought for my life for the next month and lost so much weight being in that hospital bed. After I got out of the hospital, my parents read my medical records without my consent and held an intervention for me, claiming that I was going to die before the age of 40 if I kept leading such a sinful life. My mother threatened to report me to the BYU Honor Code Office for having had sex before marriage, which would have led to my expulsion from the university in my senior year.

I could not believe that this was happening. All of the anger that I had kept in for so many years exploded out of me and I told my parents that I was going to cut them out of my life unless they decided to stop being so judgmental about my decisions.

This was the first time I had ever really actually stood up to my mom and I am so much happier now having more distance from her and the religion that I grew up in.

It took me more than a year to feel healthy and myself again, but something inside me was even more fiery than before. I believe that I could be as strong and as resilient as the aquatic insects that I had grown so fond of. My mother's disapproval of who I was didn't matter anymore.

I want to spend the rest of my life rallying for the conservation of aquatic insects, falling in love with natural ecosystems that I have not visited yet, making a life full of new memories to replace the bad ones and surrounding myself with people I love.

Thank you.