Although it sounds cliched, Ariel Trahan truly can’t remember a time when she wasn’t immersed in nature. “I grew up in Michigan and was outside all the time,” she recalls. “We had a cabin in the woods, and I attended wilderness adventure camp every summer from age eight to age fifteen.” Her parents were environmentally conscious, she says, and gave their children a keen sense of responsibility for the natural world.

That love affair continued at Emma, where Ariel participated in the Outing Club and ran cross-country in the Back Forty. It's hardly surprising, then, that she has made environmental work her career, a labor of love that represents a natural extension of a childhood steeped in nature.

 

Ariel is particularly drawn to water. “Growing up, I took clean water for granted,” she admits. “I swam freely in lakes and streams, never worrying about pollutants. It was a gift. Now I want to do whatever I can to give everyone access to clean water.”

Ariel wasted no time in making her dreams a reality. After completing a bachelor’s degree in history and environmental studies from Minnesota’s Macalester College in 2007, she accepted a job at a residential environment center in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region. “It was seasonal work,” she explains. “We took kids out of the city and into nature, with the goal of showing them that nature is part of daily life, rather than something to be experienced occasionally.”

After three years, she realized that she wanted to meet kids where they were and accepted a job as an environmental educator with the Anacostia Watershed Society (AWS) in Washington, DC. “I was responsible for getting kids excited about nature; it was a dream job,” she enthuses. “Many of the kids we worked with had grown up near the Anacostia River but had never been in or on the water, so there were lots of opportunities to engage them.”

Ariel spent the next 14 years with AWS, advancing to manager of education programs and then to director of river restoration programs. “I oversaw all educational programming as well as river restoration initiatives. We did everything from trash clean-ups and tree plantings to school rain gardens and wetlands restoration projects.”

She is particularly proud of AWS’s Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience. “We would go into classrooms and talk about issues facing the river and then arrange to take the kids out on the river to see the plants and animals they had just learned about,” she explains. “We then took the kids out on the water a second time to engage in a restoration project. It was incredibly rewarding to see them get excited about restoring and preserving our waterways when many of them had previously never given the river a minute’s thought.”

In 2023, Ariel decided another change was in order and accepted a position as an environmental protection specialist for the Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE). Her focus: wetlands restoration. “This position allows me to focus on large-scale restoration projects,” she explains. “I’ve shifted from public education to more behind-the-scenes design and permitting. I worked on the community scale for many years; now I’m committed to accelerating large-scale change.”

While energized by the opportunities inherent to her DOEE work, Ariel underscores that educational initiatives must continue. “In an urban setting, the natural environment is not always top of mind,” she says. “People are often focused on socioeconomic issues, which is understandable. So, I try to determine what resonates with people; for example, people may be motivated by living in a clean neighborhood or by a river that’s free of trash. I want people to love nature as much as I do, which means I must meet them where they are. When we find that common ground, results follow.”

This piece originally appeared in the Spring/Summer 2024 issue of Signature Magazine as one of three alum features.