Teaching in the Parks: The National Park Service's 2023 Excellence in Education Awards

The National Park Service's Excellence in Education Awards recognize outstanding work in education, programs that show thoughtful use of education principles, innovation and adaptation. These were the 2023 national and regional recipients.

Mesa Verde National Park staff and partners accepts the 2023 Excellence in Interpretation Team Award. NPS.

National recipient: Seeking Paths in Nature, Great Smoky Mountains

Great Smoky Mountains National Park (Regions 1, 2 and 4, Southeast)

Seeking Paths in Nature (SPiN) is a curriculum that weaves Cherokee culture and traditional ecological knowledge into park themes. Park staff and educators from Cherokee middle schools created it together, with the project started and funded by the Cherokee Preservation Foundation. Its six classroom units show how the Cherokee have used science throughout their history. Traditional stories reveal how Cherokee ways of knowing rest on observing the interactions among all beings, and students learn that observation is a path to knowledge, turning their own observations into art, stories and other creative work. Each unit ends with ideas that let students carry their learning further in their communities.

SPiN answers a wish within the Cherokee community for non-tribal students in the region to understand their Cherokee neighbors' culture more deeply, and it actively acknowledges that the park lies within the traditional homelands of the Aniyvwiya (Cherokee). Teachers at 42 public schools across part of those homelands receive the units after a 4-hour workshop with park education staff. The activities have worked so well that the curriculum supervisor at Cherokee Central Schools uses them as a model for embedding Cherokee culture in standards-based teaching in elementary and high school. The team included Cherokee school educators, a U.S. Forest Service visual information specialist, the Cherokee Preservation Foundation and the Cherokee Speakers Council.

Regional recipients

Mount Harmony Monumental Experience — National Mall and Memorial Parks (Region 1, National Capital Area). School librarian Dr. Melaney Sanchez imagined taking all 649 students at Mt. Harmony Elementary School to the National Mall. Over five months, every student took part in park-based lessons, a field trip and a closing National Mall Night. Park education specialist Jen Epstein met every student before their trip, starting with fourth graders receiving their Every Kid Outdoors passes. Each grade studied a different memorial matched to its curriculum; kindergartners used the Washington Monument to learn shapes, and fifth graders walked to the Vietnam Veterans, Korean War Veterans and World War II memorials. Students' writing and drawings became published books, and on National Mall Night their work covered the school walls as they sang, shared what they had learned and introduced their families to a park ranger.

Park guide Claire Affinito records a virtual tour stop from the Western Overlook at Flight 93 National Memorial. Image from the National Park Service's page.

Teach to Remember 9/11 — Flight 93 National Memorial (Region 1, Northeast). This virtual program lets students and teachers in grades 6–12 visit Flight 93 and learn about the September 11 attacks through scheduled or on-demand programs, extending the memorial's reach beyond on-site ceremonies and field trips, especially for the Moment of Remembrance on 9/11. Students analyze primary documents, draw their own conclusions about what happened on Flight 93, and afterward write about how acts of courage and teamwork can change the world for the better. Built by park staff with Friends of Flight 93, teachers and a video production team, the program centers on remembering the national loss, honoring the 40 ordinary heroes, and encouraging students to make a difference.

A ranger with students outdoors. Image from the National Park Service's page.

Junior Rangers: Ecosystem Explorers! — Cuyahoga Valley National Park (Regions 3, 4 and 5, Midwest). Many Akron Public Schools students had never visited the park and were uneasy in nature. At the district's request, the Cuyahoga Valley Environmental Education Center built field trips for every second grader, funded through the GAR Foundation's annual field trip program. Around the theme "think like a scientist," children dip in ponds and sift forest leaf litter, learning to observe, reason and use hand lenses and nature journals, with preparation that readied them logistically, socially, emotionally and academically. After the first year, teachers rated it the best of their annual field trips.

Partnerships and Intern Engagement Program — Rocky Mountain National Park (Regions 6, 7 and 8, Intermountain). With the Rocky Mountain Conservancy, the park's PIE program offers interns from diverse backgrounds an introduction to Park Service careers, with job shadowing across many work groups, career counseling on federal hiring and on bias and inclusion, a supportive cohort and a chance to showcase their work. Interns' feedback in turn helps the park improve youth engagement. As of 2022, only 16% of Park Service employees identified as members of a minority group. More than 70 interns took part between 2021 and 2024, and many joined the park in seasonal, partner or permanent jobs.

A ranger speaks with a class on a video call. Image from the National Park Service's page.

Denali Distance Learning — Denali National Park and Preserve (Region 11, Alaska). Denali offers eight interactive, park-specific distance learning programs for students from kindergarten through grade 12, designed to be fun, inclusive and accessible, with room to practice skills for civil discourse. Optional activities before and after each session invite students to imagine themselves in the park and connect it to their own homes, through movement, brainstorming and discussion, so that exploring somewhere different sparks curiosity about their own surroundings.

Sources

• National Park Service, "2023 Excellence in Education Awards." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/2023-education-awards.htm
• Excellence in Education Awards: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/npscelebrates/excellence-in-education-awards.htm; Teach to Remember: https://www.nps.gov/flni/teach-2-remember.htm
• The source page includes a video captioned as Mesa Verde National Park's 2023 Excellence in Interpretation Team Award, which its text does not describe; it is not covered here. Full lists of team members appear on the source page.
• The film and any audio are the National Park Service's own files, from the source page.