Talk NERRdy to Me: Coreen Weilminster

Talk NERRdy to Me is a monthly column about leaders and luminaries from across our 30—soon to be 33—Reserves. This month, NERRA’s scrupulous scrutinizer Nik Charov interviewed Coreen Weilminster, education coordinator at the Chesapeake Bay Reserve in Maryland and a System leader in leaning in, sticking to, and thinking about how to be as inclusive as possible in our work. They spoke of gooey middles, long-term and regional education efforts, Fear of Missing Out, and retirements that may never come. (Photos courtesy of Coreen.) 

Nik: We’ve known each other for a long time, so I’m skipping the chitchat and going for the jugular: Coreen Weilminster, you’re an education coordinator, so please tell me why National Estuarine Research Reserves should exist.

Coreen: Umm, ok…I was born in anthracite coal country in a town literally called Coaldale, Pennsylvania, which is part of Carbon County. I grew up in the mountains, almost Appalachia. I didn’t move to a coastal area until I was in my thirties. I came to the coast seeing it as a frontline of defense from the weather that comes off the oceans. The coast is a defining space that allows us to be a stronger country because we focus a lot of our living, economies, and recreation there. It’s like the best part of the pie: the crust. There’s the beautiful interior of the pie that you eat with your fork and then you save the crust for last, if you’re like me, because without it, it’s not a pie. You’ve got to have that crust. 

Nik: It’s the border between the soft gooey middle and the rest of the universe. Crispy, flaky, maybe even a little salty.

Coreen: The coast is such a cool place. Every time I travel by plane, I’m glued to the window. I just love that space where the land and the water touch, and how we have adapted in those spaces, and how wild it still is in so many of those spaces.I get mad when I don’t get a window seat on an airplane or when people close the window. 

Nik: Or when they sit in the window seat and don’t look out. My teenage boys, for instance, will say they want the window seat and then they’re on their phones as soon as we take off and I yell “You’re switching! You do not deserve this. You do not UNDERSTAND.” It’s not my Fear of Missing Out; it’s my Anger Over Others Missing Out.

Coreen: Hmmm.

Nik: But let’s talk about your FOMO. It’s a running joke that the tabs open in your browser often number in the hundreds. Because you are always getting involved in, or reading or thinking about, or hoping that you’ll get back to some Very Cool Thing. 

Coreen: <checking> I’m logged into two different Google accounts right now. And I’ve got 67 tabs open on this computer and 38 on this computer. It’s a mess. 

Nik: At some point, the laptop must be, like, “I’m out. I can’t do this anymore. Please stop.”

Coreen: I’m a bit of a hoarder when it comes to virtual things. At least they don’t take up space in my house. 

Nik: Have you always been like this? 

Coreen: Even since I was really young, I had fear of missing out. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a rural area. Maybe it’s because I was a military brat and moved around a lot until I was about eight years old. I don’t really know what the reason is but if I wasn’t busy, I was restless. My summers were spent always riding a bike, swimming, waterskiing, schlepping through the woods with an empty coffee can looking for crayfish and salamanders. Choose your adventure for the day.

Nik: So what happens when you’re not busy and the browser is closed and nobody needs you for anything? Do you freak out? 

Coreen: I feel restless. I sit there in discomfort. Sometimes I’ll just go and sit outside. I have a beautiful back deck that overlooks a ravine and our deck sits about mid-level in this canopy of trees. I’ll sit there among the green and try as little as possible, but also as hard as possible, to be present. 

Nik: …and what happens after 30 seconds? 

Coreen: I’m okay. I’m counting my breaths. I’m breathing in peace and breathing out anxiety. 

Nik: The Chesapeake Bay, Maryland Reserve, NERRA, and all the other environmental organizations that you work with must benefit immensely from that hamster wheel of a brain you have?

Coreen: Well, we’ve been maintaining some anchor programs, like most reserves do. We have a very successful Teachers on the Estuary (TOTE) program—it’s been my favorite since 2011. We hold it the first week of August, in partnership with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office. It’s increasingly focused on integrating social-emotional learning into science education,while emphasizing meaningful watershed educational experiences.

This directly supports Maryland law mandating that all students graduate environmentally literate, which applies across elementary, middle, and high school. Some rockstar systems even implement it annually from kindergarten through 12th grade.

Some TOTE projects will include turning a piece of school ground into a pollinator garden or having the students write a small grant to be able to turn their courtyard into a living laboratory of some kind, where they have tables and a little water feature, bird feeders, etc. Or they’ll write letters to legislators about important environmental issues too. 

Nik: Whoa.

Coreen: Yes! 

Another key program, Shoring Up Resiliency Through Education, began in 2017 with Somerset County Schools on the Reserve’s Monie Bay site. Collaborating with teachers, we designed curriculum modules that aligned with their science topics. Students get to engage with trusted messengers from their—community cultural heritage bearers—who share real-life insights on the erosion impacts, biodiversity changes they’ve seen, and marine debris. 

We also host an annual Wetlands and Wildlife Field Day every September, which has been running for 31 years. Some fourth-grade teachers we work with today were former Wetlands and Wildlife Field Day participants!

Nik: After 31 years, you’re getting some return-repeats!

Coreen: It’s so cool when they admit they were once students in the program. One of the other things that I’ve been working on a lot lately is climate change education. I’m proud to be a core member of the Mid-Atlantic Climate Change Education (MACCE) Collaborative. I’ve worked closely with Reserves in Delaware and New Jersey. Another focus for me is the MACCE Conference, where we share cutting-edge, trailblazing climate change education with educators in the mid-Atlantic—whether that’s mental health support for students and teachers or what’s happening in agricultural education around climate for those farming communities on the Delmarva.

The Chesapeake Bay Maryland Reserve’s all star team. 

Nik: Has it been challenging at all to work with more rural communities on climate change? I’ve heard tales of those Chesapeake watermen …

Coreen: We do what we can with it. We talk about change over time and what’s worth protecting in their community. We’ve had to build a lot of trust as a government entity and as a science entity, because of the way that the agriculture and watermen-based economies have been regulated. A lot of trust has been lost in those communities. But we connect on shared values – protecting the natural resources and responsibly managing our lands and waters.  And we have learned to be better listeners as resources for our communities. All of this is really getting at the human dimensions of our science and its application. Looking ahead, I want to work more on our exhibits. The current ones are old and they’re good, but they could be zhuzhed up. There’s some virtual reality stuff that could be incorporated. I want to consider what our should reserves look like in the 21st Century, for the passive visitors.

Nik: It’s probably a good time to hunker and consider what’s going on in just our own visitor centers—what matters most in our states. Who’s to say what’s to come?

Coreen: Who’s to say what’s to come.

Nik: The work continues.

Coreen: From the ground up.

Nik: We’ll just keep doing it.

Coreen: Yep. But, listen, when I look back on my life, I want to know that I spent my time well. I try to envision what it’s going to be like when I get to retirement and what I am going to do with my time then. It’s a little bit scary, but it’s also kind of liberating to think about that free time and what I might do.

Nik: You are now, like it or not, one of the Elder NERRds.

Coreen: Yeah. I feel that every freaking day. I’m cool with it. I absolutely am in awe of the young, energetic Reserve folks that are coming up in the ranks. They blow my mind. I love seeing how they operate, thinking about the ways that they engage, understanding what their values are … thinking about how they are bringing transformation to our system. I’m here for it. 

But I will say this: I’ve been in my profession long enough to have seen some stuff … I am in that place where I’ve said, “We’ve been there, done that, it didn’t work.” But now it’s 20 years later and maybe it will work differently this time. 

Nik: Speaking of time, let’s talk about how you spend it and all of those tabs open on your desktop.

Coreen: I grew up with a grandmother who worked in a bank; she was such a sweet woman. She always said, “Never worry about how you spend your money, just worry about how you spend your time.” And that sticks with me. It propels me to lean into things that I probably should hit the no button on but I’m, like, “Well, you know what? I really kind of want to see how this plays out. And I want to see if there’s anything for it that I can bring to my work. If there’s anything that I can support that they might need from me.” So that’s where the FOMO comes in. Because I have FOMO, I tend to just say yes. It’s both a superpower and a liability, if you will.

Nik: One of NERRA’s hopes is that people who feel the same way will feel less weird because they see someone else with this say-yes complex, superpower-also-liability.

Coreen: I think a lot of us operate at a frequency that’s a little different. My family did buy me a no button a few years ago. And my coworkers bought me a pen that has a ‘no’ button on the end of it years ago … I don’t even know where either one of those things are anymore. 

Nik: You weren’t using them. They’re gathering dust on the shelf. 

Coreen: I want our Reserves to be somewhere where if your or my young adult kids (or other young up and coming conservation professional)  went to our website and wanted to know what we’re all about, that they would see themselves reflected in our online presence. I feel like this next generation of conservation professionals is bringing a lot of cool stuff with them. So I’m okay with getting old, and the time’s approaching for me to step out of spaces. … And I can always be a volunteer! 

Nik: See, you couldn’t even just leave it. You had to lean back in. You might miss out on something!

Coreen: That’s right. I know there are some good friends groups out there that could use some volunteers. Maybe that’s the next thing I’ll do. And I won’t be miserable. I’ve never been miserable at work, ever. I just always love it. Sometimes I get sad or frustrated that things aren’t moving fast enough. There’s the difference between incremental and transformative change. I feel sometimes like the incremental change needs to make some room for the transformational change. Maybe that’s a sign for me to make some space for the newcomers coming in. Then I can get off the hamster wheel. 

Nik: I thought me and you were the same age but then I looked it up and realized you’re like my older sister. That’s the problem: you still have such youthful optimism!

Coreen: That will never go away. I think I inherited that from that same grandmother. I will be like her. She was 94 when she died. 

Nik: There you go, everybody. The secret to a long life is to stay busy and don’t miss out on anything. Stay busy, stay cheerful, stay optimistic. 

Coreen: That’s right. And don’t be afraid to have 150 tabs open! It’s okay. That’s what I’m going to keep telling myself, until my computer says, “Hell no!”

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