Story by Tim Hauserman ·
Heather Segale works with local students to help them understand the science of Lake Tahoe.
Whether it is getting in a grueling cross-country ski before work or expounding the virtues of a science program for children, Heather Segale, is determined to live life to the fullest while making sure the next generation understands the science of Lake Tahoe.
As the Education and Outreach Director for the UC Davis Tahoe Science Center, on the campus of Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village, Segale has the opportunity to present the scientific story of Lake Tahoe to thousands of people every year.
“Heather is Tahoe’s equivalent of the Tasmanian devil. She’s full of energy and never stops moving. Her energies are focused on our education programs and to make them better,” says Geoff Schladlow, director of the UC Davis Environmental Research Center and Segale’s boss.
Segale was raised in Michigan and her first exposure to Lake Tahoe was when she came out to visit her uncle, who had a place in Olympic Valley. He took her on a hike into the Desolation Wilderness.
“After doing the hike I kept dreaming about a magic forest, and could not stop thinking about moving here. I wanted to go to Stanford and Berkeley. I wanted my California,” Segale says. Instead, she met her husband, John, at Lake Tahoe, and would eventually go to the University of Nevada, Reno, where she earned a Masters in Environmental Science.
Many of the Science Center programs are designed for young students, and it is a popular place for field trips.
But first, she had to do that first year living in Tahoe. She worked five jobs, including nighttime maintenance for a ski pass, bartending at River Ranch, bookkeeping for a local plumber, database text support and cleaning houses. But in 2001, she began working for the University of Nevada, Reno, Lake Tahoe Environmental Education program, which is where she discovered her life’s passion. Her job was to bring together programs and agencies and to get them to work together effectively in providing environmental education.
In 2005, she started working for the UC Davis Science Center before it was built. A stipulation of a gift from the Thomas J. Long Foundation to fund a science center was that the school had to hire a full-time science coordinator.
It’s when Segale starts talking about the programs that she administers that her passion for passing on her love of nature is evident. The Tahoe Science Center’s displays include an exhibit of a research boat, a lab, 3D theater and a host of hands-on exhibits. The goal is to teach people what is special and unique about Tahoe and the environmental issues we face: loss of lake clarity, impact of the introduction of invasive species, and climate change. The science center informs visitors on the science of Tahoe, and what to do to make things better.
Many of the Science Center programs are designed for young students, and it is a popular place for field trips. Students learn about the water cycle, land forms and topography and watersheds through the use of a cool 3D interactive sandbox.
An exhibit of the “John LeConte” research vessel is part of the Tahoe Science Center.
“We made the first one of these and now they are going into other places,” Segale says.
She also shows the kids the earthquake viewer, which portrays the location of earthquakes in three dimensions.
The goal of the children’s programs, Segale says, is to align the exhibits with grade level standards while teaching students about Lake Tahoe. It is research based, hands on and focused on keeping the students interested.
“The more the students understand about the place they live, the better stewards of the region they will become,” Segale says.
One of the programs that Segale says that she loves is the Youth Science Institute, an after-school program for high school kids. Once a week for 16 weeks the students are introduced to science.
It is designed to make the high schoolers, Segale says, “feel comfortable and confident about science, and we surveyed those who were in the program and the survey has shown that students who were a part of it had increased interest in studying science in college. That kind of stuff gives me chills. With no children of our own I can have a positive influence on the lives of many children.”
“It’s hard to find a friend who is inspiring without being intimidating or competing,” says long-time friend Nikki Aronhalt. Heather always keeps in her stock of energy enough passion to help a friend along.”
Perhaps it is this passion without intimidation that makes Segale able to pass on her love of Tahoe to others.
Science Day
Aug. 8 at the Tahoe Science Center is Children’s Environmental Science Day. It’s designed as an opportunity for families to bring kids to the center and be involved in a variety of different hands on activities.
