Seminars Kindle a New National Vision
In its landmark report, Rethinking the National Parks for the 21st Century, the National Park System Advisory Board challenged the NPS to “proclaim anew the meaning and value of parks, conservation, and recreation; to expand the learning and research occurring in parks and share that knowledge broadly; and to encourage all Americans to experience these special places.” In addition, the board emphasized that “parks … are powerful resources offering unique, place-based learning opportunities … [and] offer citizens of all ages opportunities to strengthen their connections to the environment and to renew their sense of wonder and appreciation for our democracy.” The nation as a whole has been seeking fresh perspectives on how its educational institutions can have a much greater impact, the advisory board said. The National Park Service is such an institution, and American society will benefit enormously if NPS takes a deep new look at all the best ways it can help people learn and become more engaged citizens.

The NPS National Leadership Council (NLC) responded to this advisory board report and its education challenge with an effort unlike any it had undertaken in the past. From December 2002 through June 2003, with support from the new NPS Director Fran P. Mainella and help from a national working group that included CSI, the NLC devoted part of each bimonthly meeting to a series of seminars in which council members listened and talked in depth with a succession of experts, researchers, and field practitioners engaged with leading-edge education as it relates to American parks.

“The series was conceived as a bridge between NPS leadership and the best ideas on education in this country,” said Nora Mitchell, CSI’s director. To develop the topics and assemble the speakers, the working group gathered ideas and input from park superintendents and education practitioners across the country.

“We drew on the experience in education out in the field, which is tremendous and impressive,” Mitchell said. “We also drew on the knowledge from a wide range of experts outside the NPS—this was a great combination to bring to NPS leadership as it crafted a response to the challenge set by the advisory board—to raise the bar higher.”

“It’s important that the NLC had the interest and took the time and the energy to go through a series of seminars to learn about the potential of national parks as a contributor to learning in America today,” said Julia Washburn, a member of the series working group who is vice president for grants and programs at the National Park Foundation. “So this,” she added, “was a very important step forward.”

Loran Fraser, director of the NPS Office of Policy, agrees. “This was a commitment by the leadership of the organization to learn [and] to gain information on current practices, research, and theory before making any decisions on what the course of action would be.”

“Place-based Education Has Great Promise”
The topics that seminar speakers and the NLC explored included “place-based education, highlighting the strong connection between place and the learner; learning styles and the need to understand the different ways in which people process information; the challenge of providing meaningful multiple learning experiences; and the need for program evaluation,” along with technology and distance learning, the NLC Journal reported. Speakers were both national and community-based leaders in their fields.

Among them was Megan Camp, vice president of the Vermont-based educational nonprofit, Shelburne Farms. CSI has worked with Shelburne Farms on a place-based education project titled “A Forest for Every Classroom: Learning to Make Choices for the Future,” together with Marsh- Billings Rockefeller National Historical Park, the Green Mountain National Forest, the National Wildlife Federation, and teachers from a number of Vermont communities. This partnership was crafted on a common vision of students learning from and caring for public lands. A professional development program for teachers introduces them to public lands in their communities as places for exploration and real-world learning, and then supports their development of curriculum that integrates interdisciplinary study of place with stewardship and civics.

“Parks themselves are place-based, so they are an incredible classroom,” Camp later reflected. “In addition, there’s a close relationship between knowledge of place and a sense of stewardship— through learning opportunities on public lands, learners have the chance not only to gain knowledge, but also to be stewards of their own heritage. The long-term goal is to contribute to developing important civic engagement and citizenship skills.”

Camp said the NLC members asked her questions about the results learned from the project’s evaluation, which was then in mid-process. “They wanted to know: Is there evidence that if we invest in these types of programs, we’ll see a longer-term outcome of more involved citizenry practicing stewardship in our communities?” Although research is ongoing, Camp notes that “the evidence to date indicates that place-based education has great promise for both engaged student learning as well as revitalizing teachers.” Camp quoted one of the participating teachers, “This program has rekindled my soul and passion for teaching. It has made it meaningful again.”

The Results: A National Strategy
“Throughout the seminar series, NLC members grappled with the issues and ideas very directly,” said working group member Patti Reilly, director of NPS’s Northeast Center for Educational Services. “The seminar series was an opportunity to take a step back for thoughtful discussions with experts and people outside the NPS, and to consider the larger picture. This was also a look forward—how are we going to be operating into the next century? What are the implications of demographic changes and the need for more community connections? How can we be more strategic? At the conclusion, I hoped the series would put the agency in a position to develop a national approach to education,” Reilly said, “and it did that.”

The NLC followed up by recommending to NPS Director Mainella a vision, guiding principles, and three goals for National Park Service education: build capacity, guarantee opportunities, and strengthen partnerships. The NLC then asked a group of NPS staff from across the country to review these recommendations and develop a more detailed educational strategy that was published in June 2003 as Renewing Our Education Mission. Director Mainella then created a National Education Council, with NPS representatives from across the country, to guide the implementation of this effort. The National Park System Advisory Board has formed an education committee to continue its focus on the learning potential of national parks, and to work in concert with the NPS education council.

“I have never seen an issue so excite this organization as the prospect of developing our capacity as an educator,” reflected seminar participant Loran Fraser. “This was very exciting, it was reaching out. It was growth.”
(Above text by Doug Wilhelm)

Renewing the NPS Education Mission: Follow-up Actions to the National Seminar Series
Rethinking the National Parks for the Twenty-first Century (published in 2001) called on the National Park Service to further develop its capacity in education. The report declared that education is central to the mission of the National Park Service, and stated that NPS can not accomplish its mission without a more coherent and comprehensive educational focus. It observed that parks are powerful educational resources, and that NPS has enormous potential to advance its purposes through education. It called on the National Park Service to become a more significant part of America’s educational system, with budgets, policies, and an organizational structure reflecting this vision.

[The board recommends that] the National Park Service embrace its mission, as educator, to become a more significant part of America’s educational system by providing formal and informal programs for students and learners of all ages inside and outside park boundaries.
— National Park System Advisory Board, National Parks for the 21st Century, 2001

In response to this report, the NPS director and the National Leadership Council initiated a seminar series designed to explore state-of-the-art education theory and practice, and to consider NPS opportunities. The seminars invited scholars and experts outside the park to present and discuss with NPS leaders a variety of initiatives and current research. The goal of the seminars was to inform decision making for designing a comprehensive twenty-first century National Park Service education program. The Conservation Study Institute played a key role in organizing this seminar series.

During the concluding seminar in June 2002, the NPS National Leadership Council agreed on a vision statement, guiding principles, and goals for a national framework for an education program. After field review, a report, Renewing Our Education Mission, was approved by the director and the NPS Education Council created. In May 2002, the director asked the National Park System Advisory Board to create an education committee.

In May 2004, the NPS Education Council, an interdisciplinary advisory forum of representative NPS national and field staff, convened for its first meeting. They agreed that to guide implementation of the national actions in Renewing Our Education Mission a number of work groups must be formed and asked to recommend issue-specific plans.

CSI Director Nora Mitchell is serving on the evaluation work group and will work with the NPS Education Council and, through the NPS Policy Office, the National Park System Advisory Board’s Education Committee, to develop a nationwide approach to evaluation.