Engage With Nature

Giving Forward

Who: Leslie Fleischner 

What She supports: 
Powdermill Nature Reserve

Why it matters:
“If (children) don’t learn about nature when they’re in elementary school, they’re not going to go out and be good stewards of the environment.”  –Leslie Fleischner

In the summer of 1979, 8-year-old Chris Fleischner brought to his parents a deceased robin that he found in the backyard of their Squirrel Hill home.

The robin was an exciting find for young Chris, but there were practical considerations—most importantly, what they were going to do with it.

They could have just tossed the feathered carcass in the trash or buried it in the yard. But, sensing a learning opportunity for her son, Chris’ mother, Leslie Fleischner, offered an alternative proposal: donate it to Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s bird collection. And so, they put the robin in a shoebox and set out for Oakland.

Leslie and her husband, Hans, knew they weren’t offering the museum a major avian discovery—they were just trying to foster their son’s curiosity in nature. All these decades later, Leslie still wants elementary school-age children to engage with nature up close and in person.

“That’s the age,” Leslie says. “If they don’t learn about nature when they’re in elementary school, they’re not going to go out and be good stewards of the environment.”

The Fleischners are longtime supporters of Carnegie Museums and, most recently, the avian and conservation research happenings at Powdermill Nature Reserve, the museum’s field station in the Laurel Highlands region of southwestern Pennsylvania.

Located a little over an hour outside Pittsburgh, Powdermill is something of a hidden gem, Leslie says. Trips to the Oakland museum are wonderful for school trips, but Leslie wants more people to explore Powdermill’s forests, fields, ponds, and wetlands. Last year, she made a generous pledge to support capital improvements at Powdermill, notably to the cabins where researchers stay overnight, to purchase valuable research equipment, and to invest in increased research and outreach on-site.

“I don’t think people know much about Powdermill,” she says.

Established in 1956 under then museum director M. Graham Netting, Powdermill Nature Reserve covers nearly 2,200 acres of forested land and is best known for its bird banding program, which is the longest-running year-round professional bird banding operation in the country. Years of bird banding data contribute to our knowledge of migrating species and how they are responding to a changing world. Powdermill researchers also examine how forests regenerate and ecosystems recover from pollution related to mining, among other study areas.

The public is invited to learn more about these research efforts, attend nature hikes, and enjoy other programming free of charge, opportunities that Chris and his family have been enjoying more since 2020.

“I think COVID was a good chance for people to realize the importance of being back in nature,” he says. “That definitely brought some of those conservation issues—and just being present in nature—much more to the forefront for us.”

Powdermill recently has been upgrading its facilities. In 2022, the Richard P. Mellon Avian Research Center—a 2,859-square-foot research facility—officially opened to host educational demonstrations and trainings, and provide more space for up to 10 researchers to stay on-site when projects call for it. The new facility was supported with a $1 million grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation, and Leslie’s generous contribution will build on that work by supporting further renovations and paying for new equipment.

“We love the idea of contributing toward a greater understanding of what’s happening in and around our surroundings,” Chris says. “I think Powdermill has been at the cutting edge of doing a lot of avian research and other types of research too.”

Leslie says it’s important to support work that contributes to a fuller understanding of the natural world. An avid traveler and photographer, Leslie spends much of her time on Florida’s Gulf Coast, where she has witnessed the impacts of climate change on the local ecosystem.

This experience has reinforced for her the value of getting outside and learning about ecological issues. Museum exhibitions are a vital resource for teaching people about the environment, she says, but there is no substitute for actually engaging with nature in person.