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Jane Goodall, the famous primatologist, well-known for her groundbreaking research on chimpanzees passed away last year at the age of 91.

Born in 1934 in London, Goodall’s fascination with animals was inspired when her mother took her to visit a country farm when she was 4. There, she wandered to a henhouse patiently observing a hen laying an egg. “Mom had been desperately looking for me; she’d called the police. But when she saw my shining eyes, she sat down to hear my wonderful story of how a hen lays an egg.” She credited her mother’s support at that moment and later in life for paving the way for her career.

In 1960, at age 26, Goodall traveled to Tanzania’s Gombe Stream National Park to study chimpanzees. She made history when she discovered that chimpanzees, humankind’s closest living relatives, made and used tools, which was long thought unique to humans. She also found that chimps hunted prey, ate meat, and had emotions and behaviors similar to humans. Her findings reshaped scientific understanding of primate behavior and human evolution.

During her long-term studies, she gave her chimp subjects names instead of numbers, a practice that raised eyebrows in the male-dominated field of primate studies in the 1960s. But within a decade, she became a National Geographic heroine, her books and films educating worldwide audiences with stories of the apes she called Graybeard, McGregor, and Gilka.

Beyond her research, Goodall became a global conservation advocate. In 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. She also launched the “Roots & Shoots” program, engaging youth worldwide in environmental and animal welfare projects. As a UN Messenger of Peace, she traveled extensively to raise awareness about conservation, poverty, and climate change, emphasizing the connections of human, animal, and environmental well-being. Goodall’s legacy lies in her unwavering belief that “every individual matters.”

In Camp Tuhsmeheta (short for touch, smell, hear and taste), Jerusalem Crawley, a blind boy, met Donna Posont in her class about birding. “I was immediately attracted and wanted to learn more.” said Crawley.

Posont, who is blind, introduced Crawley and other blind summer campers to the sounds of different birds. “Blindness doesn’t need to limit anyone — you can learn about nature and identify trees, plants and birds using the other senses,” said Posont, 67, who has started to watch birds monthly since 2009, with the goal of teaching blind people to explore nature independently.

Posont grew up in a small town and she dreamed of studying biology in college. However, she couldn’t find a school with the proper equipment to teach a blind person. Instead, she earned a degree in social work, but still hoped to study biology. Luckily years later computers and high technology equipped schools to accept blind students. So in 2008, Posont returned to college and studied the subjects she’d missed in her younger years. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 2015 with a degree in environmental studies and a minor (辅修) in biology.

During summer breaks at the University of Michigan, she started passing along what she’d learned about birds and plants through touch, sound and smell to children at Camp Tuhsmeheta. “You miss a lot in a sighted world if you learn by depending on healthy people.” said Posont.

With bird populations dropping at an alarming rate due to habitat loss, pollution and climate change, Posont said it’s more important than ever to hand down what she’s learned. “You can use your other senses to learn why birds and nature are important and how they all work together游,” she said. “The world is designed for sighted people, but nature is a place where it’s okay to be blind. To me, that’s the beauty of it.”