Growing up with Science and Exploration

As Pat and I prepared to launch the foundation and the Awards in Field Biology, I realized how growing up amongst scientists and other explorers has shaped my life. Science, fieldwork and explorations of faraway places – all while searching for understanding of our natural world – were grand and admirable pursuits.

Dad started it. Arthur Maxwell PhD was an oceanographer whose early research on ocean geothermal measurements required going out to sea on a research vessel, inventing and building the tools needed while traveling in the South Pacific. His stories from faraway places — Tahiti, Tonga, the Marquesas, Fiji — captured my attention and sparked my imagination. I devoured books on sea voyages, thumbed through all of our National Geographic magazines and dreamed of adventure and discovery.

Family friends were engaged in geology and paleontology research, and my brother Rick was luckily along for the ride. Summer vacation with my best friend Sarah’s family was a field trip in the U.S. West, searching for Paleozoic brachiopods to be brought back to the Smithsonian for study. My brother’s lifelong interest in rocks and minerals undoubtedly stemmed from these adventures, and his enthusiasm was contagious. My brother Rick , sister Lynn and I are all still avid rockhounds.

My family’s experiences encouraged my own small explorations during my childhood in Washington, DC. My siblings and friends were what one may call “free-range” kids. Our days included wandering off to the Potomac River to chip garnets out of rocks, bringing home snakes and turtles from the woods, capturing fireflies in jars and tossing rocks at a paper wasp nest in order to observe the behavior of the furious insects. (That was done only once and is not recommended.) We explored and felt connected to the natural world – whether outside or wandering the halls of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

Growing up with explorers and scientists did not lead me to a career path in science, but it guided my passions and my pastimes. I continue to work as an advocate for hands-on engagement, plant conservation, habitat preservation and outdoor education. I see the process of observing, collecting, questioning and experimenting. I appreciate how this process engages our intellect and our emotions. I recognize now that combination affects the way we face problems, prepare to solve them and accept that we must face challenges in the first place.

As we look to the first group of foundation award winners in Field Biology, we celebrate these individuals for their work that helps us better understand our natural world and our roles in it. And as I look, with great excitement, toward the foundation’s future award winners in field biology and other areas where we may grow, I invite you all to learn and grow alongside us.