Centennial Series | Forward Into The Next Century
The candles have all been blown out, the balloons popped, and nothing but crumbs are left from the many birthday cakes that marked the National Park Service’s 100th birthday. Now what?
Centennial Series
Centennial Series | Bring Relevancy To The Parks By Integrating Them In Academics
Consider this future scenario: the desire to see the wonders of the American outdoors is considered uninteresting, unfruitful to thought, and an unproductive experience that doesn’t help with life. These thoughts are coming from the parents of the future who pass on their knowledge to their children.
Centennial Series | Connecting Youth With National Parks And The Outdoors
National park leaders today worry about a growing disconnect between national parks and our techno-savvy youth. But our government no longer toils alone with such problems as unemployment and disaffected youth. Today there are hosts of nonprofit park partners and even local communities willing to help. Recently reintroduced to a handful of parks through public spirited philanthropy, the conservation corps for youth is an exceptionally impactful program from the past that should be a part of every national park's future.
Centennial Series | National Parks Are A Gift To Our Youth
The slide projector whirred on the table next to my desk as Mrs. Sampson, our fourth-grade teacher, worked the balky advancement mechanism. She had purchased the Kodachromes in strips from a gift shop during her summer vacation, and the images on the screen transfixed me: vertical cliffs of white granite, waterfalls misting in midair, pine trees rising from a grassy riverbank.
Centennial Series | National Parks And The Public Sphere
Throughout the past century, the NPS has excelled at providing opportunities for adventure, beauty, and shared experience. Looking forward, I challenge the agency to embrace its role in providing a place where the global public can step outside the social trappings that obscure their vision in everyday life in order to address the most challenging social issues of our day.
- August 17th, 2016
Centennial Series | Reform, Don't Replace, The National Park Service
The centennial of the National Park Service (NPS) is inspiring an impressive amount of soul-searching about the agency and the lands for which it is responsible. This is timely and potentially beneficial. As many analysts as well as agency employees themselves have long argued, the NPS faces serious challenges that affect the preservation and management of these precious lands.
Centennial Series | Reading Wendell Berry In The National Parks
This summer the National Park Service turns one hundred years old, and many Americans—including the presidential family—are taking summer vacations to enjoy what Wallace Stegner called America’s “best idea.” In order to better appreciate what makes our National Parks so valuable, these vacationers might want to bring along the latest book by one of Stegner’s students, Wendell Berry.
Centennial Series | The National Park System In The Next Century
America can be justly proud of many accomplishments from its emphasis on democratic ideals to its promotion of equality and justice for all its citizens. But perhaps one of the nation’s greatest contributions to the global marketplace of ideas is the national park.
Centennial Series | How Strong Is A Conservation Mandate In National Park Service Legislation?*
The nation’s first national park was founded in 1872; in 1916, Congress founded the National Park Service (NPS) to administer and manage parks. Since then, the NPS and parks have been mired in policy and management controversies.
Centennial Series | Will Future Generations Preserve The National Parks?
As part of National Parks Traveler's Centennial Series, a collection of papers and essays commemorating the National Park Service Centennial, Chelsea Skoject, a natural resources conservation student on track to graduate in 2017 from the University of Florida Natural Resources Conservation, explores the question of who will preserve national park landscapes in the future.
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