About Jon Beam

For more than 14 years, PPL senior naturalist Jon Beam has shared his love and appreciation of nature with teachers, students and visitors to PPL’s Montour Preserve near Danville, Pa.

He has encouraged children to use all of their senses to experience the sights, sounds, scents and textures of nature through special summer programs. And he has guided young and old on birdwatches, butterfly counts, and countless hikes through the fields and woodlands of the preserve’s 900-plus acres.

Whether talking about cattails and wetlands, frogs and salamanders, bugs and birds, or wildflowers and trees, Beam helps others better understand our world and the fascinating plants and wildlife that inhabit it.

A longtime resident of central Pennsylvania, Beam has a bachelor’s degree in biology and a teaching certification for biology and general science from Shippensburg University, Shippensburg, Pa. He has master’s degrees in biology and geosciences from West Virginia University and Mississippi University, respectively.

In addition to delivering his weekly broadcasts of "The Nature Notebook" on the radio, Beam is a frequent columnist in PPL’s Environmental Currents newsletter, which is distributed quarterly to neighbors of PPL’s environmental preserves.