 Dean became a passionate naturalist and conservationist after teaching.One of her projects in the 1940s was the campaign to have the U.S. government to declare Alabama's Clear Creek Falls a national park, although the campaign failed and the falls were ultimately incorporated into Lewis Smith Lake.In the 1950s–60s, she helped to found the Alabama Ornithological Society, the Alabama Environmental Council, and the Alabama Conservation Council (then known as the Alabama Conservancy).