FIELD NOTES BLOG

Introducing Emma: Education AmeriCorps

Severson Dells
October 26, 2023

Hello! My name is Emma Zimmerman, and I am excited to be serving as an Environmental Education AmeriCorps Member here at Severson Dells! I have grown up in the stateline area, so I am happy to be back home and in the place I love most - the forest! I graduated this spring from Beloit College with a degree in Environmental Biology. I am interested in forest ecosystems and deep ecology, and I am passionate about people and our relationship with nature. 

I recently moved back to Illinois after serving an AmeriCorps term as a botany member in the Mt.Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest in Washington State conducting plant surveys and removing invasive species, so I’m excited to apply that knowledge and experience here at Severson! During my off time I am an avid backpacker and hiker, and I am always looking for my next adventure! I enjoy spending my time reading, running, listening to music, and spending time with friends.

I am so excited to be joining the team at Severson Dells Nature Center, and I can’t wait to watch as the seasons change in such a beautiful place. 

RECENT ARTICLES

Summer Storms: Meteorology and our Local Environment

By Sydney Sherbitsky • July 16, 2025
Summer days have an intense energy. For us, it’s easy to pack a lot of activity into long, sunlight-filled days. The atmosphere is packed in a different way, with thick, heavy humidity and sun-baked heat. You have probably experienced one of these particularly sweltering days where periods of calm are interrupted with a sudden summer storm. One moment you are relaxing, the next, you hear the rumbling of thunder, and it begins to rain, instantly cooling the hot ground and taking the stickiness from the air. You don’t have long to take in the scene as the intensity of the heat gives way to an intense storm. This is a different kind of energy in the air; this is a summer storm.

Nature's Blueprint

By Shannon Osadjan • July 3, 2025
Nature holds the answers for how to be more efficient with managing our supplies of earth’s natural resources. In fact, nature serves as the inspiration and blueprint for many structures and objects we use every day! Biomimicry is a practice of engineering that creates designs based on structures and sequences from the Earth’s natural world, including but not limited to plants, animals, and geographies. Biomimicry designs are meant to imitate functions that already exist and occur in nature. These designs are being transferred over and scaled up to provide solutions to human caused problems. There are three main core principles that make up biomimicry: recreating natural shapes, processes, and entire ecosystems.

Nature's Role in Early Childhood

By Alex Lunde • June 26, 2025
*please note: This blog was adapted from a blog series authored in 2023.