(Archived Article)
Honors Research in the National Park System and "The Best Idea We Ever Had!"
Writer Wallace Stegner called national parks, “the best idea we ever had.” The first of its kind in the world, America’s National Park System is a network of roughly 400 protected places as large as Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska and as small as Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial in Pennsylvania (.02 acres). The National Park Service engages the nurturers of this “best idea” and is charged with a challenging mission: to “preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the national park system for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations.” Each individual park has its own fascinating story to tell, and understanding how a particular park meets the mission of the National Park Service provides the perfect setting for exploring interdisciplinary and experiential education.
Partners in the Parks is a partnership between the National Collegiate Honors Council and individual university honors programs. Honors programs at host universities partner with a national park in their region to create week-long academic adventures. These adventures bring together students from honors programs across the country to explore the complexity of an individual park. Since the first Partners in the Parks project launched in Bryce Canyon National Park in 2007, Partners in the Parks has sponsored 40 projects at 32 different National Parks for over 350 students across the country.
The University of Washington Honors Program has developed and led a Partners in the Parks Program in Olympic National Park for three consecutive years, beginning in the summer of 2011. Our goals with these programs are relatively simple, but certainly not small. We want to introduce students to this extraordinary place and have them experience it firsthand. We want them to begin to understand the complexity of how such a place is managed and protected. We want them to uncover the depth and diversity of what society has to learn from a national park. And we want them to find out, for their own reasons, why such places matter. And woven throughout is our hope that they build a sense of community with other students and open themselves up to the concept that the Olympic National Park is their classroom. We achieve these goals by taking a remarkable journey with some extraordinary partners.
We begin our week in Olympic on the wild and rugged Pacific Coast, move through the coastal rainforests and massive river ecosystems, and end in the high alpine environment. Perched high atop Hurricane Ridge, the students can look back over the vast Olympic wilderness through which they’ve traveled and see first hand how it all fits together. We use the themes and tensions presented in the mission statement of the National Park Service to guide how we develop our program, and to provide a thread that ties our interactions with diverse partners together.
But first, in each place, we stop, learn, and take time to see things through the lens of someone with deep expertise in what we are exploring. We wander over tide pools with a park natural resource scientist; we take tree core samples deep in the Hoh Rain Forest with a UW climate scientist. We stargaze high above the tree line with the park’s research coordinator and wade through the sediment of drained lake beds with UW and tribal biologists as the mighty Elwha River begins its long recovery. We hike with a park archeologist by sites of cultural discovery thousands of years old, and hear poetry inspired by a life spent exploring the Olympic wilderness read by campfire light.
We purposefully introduce students to a variety of people who work with and find inspiration from the park but who also come from a range of disciplines. Each speak from their own expertise, but collectively they point to the tension presented in the National Park Service mission. We inevitably lead our students to complex discussions about wilderness, land use, park management, conservation, preservation, science, recreation, art, and so much more.
Hearing from these passionate and inspired professionals helps students understand how enormous and complex the work of any given park really is, as well as models a variety of people from diverse academic backgrounds who have found a life and career working with these important places. As their own favorite places and moments in the park take shape, the students learn from one another as well through their unique observations and encounters with Olympic.
In the summer of 2014, UW Honors plans to expand our Partners in the Parks offerings to Mount Rainier National Park and tell an entirely new story with equally inspiring partners. In addition to hosting students from around the country on our own programs, we encourage UW Honors Program students to attend other Partners in the Parks programs. In the past, our students have explored exciting parks such as Acadia, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, and Glacier National Parks. We have awarded a scholarship covering one student’s registration costs every year, and we hope to continue this encouragement of our own students’ exploration of these wondrous places. The UW Honors Program is proud to be involved in this partnership with the National Collegiate Honors Council. Collaborating in this way with other Honors Programs around the country brings enormous benefits to students.
Aley Willis, Laura Harrington, and Brook Kelly
UW Honors Program Academic Advisers
Partners in the Parks Program Directors