WHAT WE DO

   Federal Hall National Memorial in downtown Manhattan has a storied past. George Washington was sworn into office as our first president on this site. The first U.S. Congress met in here in 1789 and 1790, passing the Bill of Rights and other fundamental laws that shape our lives today.

   But the park's 30-year-old exhibits don't tell all of these fascinating stories. Park managers don't have sufficient funding to update public education materials and create cohesive, interactive exhibits that resonate with visitors and tell the park's-and America's-story. This living history classroom is without a blackboard.

School Groups Are Turned Away

   National parks - the living, changing embodiment of America's heritage - offer myriad opportunities for visitors - especially children - to learn about the events that shaped America's history. The park system encompasses sites that tell the stories of how we became a nation and diversity of our shared culture. At each of these sites, park staff plays an important role in relaying these stories. But budget shortfalls affect the quantity and quality of public education programs and school outreach that the national parks have historically been able to provide.

   At Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, located southeast of Chicago, more than 32,000 students, from elementary through high school, will learn about Indiana's history and their natural world from Park Service staff this year. But one-quarter of the school groups requesting the Park Service's education programs at Indiana Dunes will be turned away.

   In January 2005, the Park Service placed three members of the park's talented education staff on temporary unpaid leave. Over the past four years, Indiana Dunes has lapsed 23 full-time equivalent positions, which means fewer opportunities for school groups and other park visitors to participate in ranger-led programs. Sadly, schoolchildren are turned away from national parks across the country.

   At Sequoia and Kings Canyon, the Park Service refused about half of the school groups requesting ranger-led education programs in 2002. Three out of four school groups' requests for ranger-led programs are denied at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia because of insufficient staffing. The groups are still free to explore the park, but they will not gain nearly as much benefit as they would have from an interactive, ranger-led program. Educational programs for students at Fort Laramie National Historic Site in Wyoming and at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site in Pennsylvania have also been scaled back in recent years. Insufficient funding also imperils the popular educational outreach program at Canyonlands National Park in Utah, which uses class visits and park field trips to teach nearly 3,500 students and more than 250 adults each year about geology, minerals, botany, dinosaurs, physics, and environmental stewardship.

   According to a 2004 survey conducted by the Travel Industry Association of America and Delaware North Companies, 90 percent of Americans say that they are drawn to national parks for the educational benefits. But without sufficient staff, the Park Service can't always provide those benefits.

Visitors Lose Out

   In 1999, the Park Service had 1,847 full-time permanent interpreters and 843 part-time interpreters. Five years later, the parks were staffed with only 1,791 full-time interpreters (3 percent reduction) and 727 part-time interpreters (13 percent reduction), even though the park system has grown to include several additional parks. This loss of 172 permanent and part-time interpreters results in approximately one interpreter per 100,000 park visitors.

   Last summer, the nation's busiest national park had only one full-time and one part-time person on hand to educate and inspire 2 million visitors to historic Cades Cove, one of the most popular spots in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina. At Everglades National Park, public education programs that were once free now cost visitors as much as $20 each. Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado has cut its seasonal interpretative staff in half. At current funding levels, Yellowstone is able to provide only 6 percent of its 2.8 million annual visitors with an educational experience.

   Shenandoah National Park offered 800 fewer ranger-led programs during the summer of 2004 than it did just three years ago. Public education and interpretive programs at Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks and Mojave National Preserve in the California desert have only half the staff and 43 percent of the funding needed to adequately serve park visitors. In 2004, Denali National Park in Alaska offered 50 percent fewer seasonal interpretive programs than it had the pervious summer.

   Funding for public education materials and improving and updating exhibits is also lacking. In 2004, the Park Service was forced to cut the number of interpretive brochures printed system-wide. Each national park site will henceforth receive only 50,000 interpretive brochures annually, and will have to pay for additional copies out of their own limited operating budgets.

   This year for example, Yosemite National Park will have to pay $53,000 to print additional brochures, which provide 3.3 million annual visitors with information about the park's historic and natural treasures, invaluable safety advice, and a map of Yosemite's often-confusing wilderness of roads and trails.

"We are not providing the same level of service that we have been able to in years past," Paul Henderson, chief of interpretation at Arches and Canyonlands told the Salt Lake Tribune in 2004. "Things are definitely tight."

Key Recommendation:
Fund Education with More Than Pocket Change

   Public education has long been identified as part of the Park Service's core mission. In 1917, only one year after the National Park Service was created, the new director, Stephen Mather, established an educational division. So important was this division to the mission of the Park Service that even though federal funds were unavailable for a staff person, Mather paid for the chief position out of his own pocket for the first year. In 2001, the National Park System Advisory Board (a legally-appointed and affirmed board of advisors) reiterated the importance of education in the mission of the Park Service and encouraged the agency to "become a more significant part of America's educational system," and to "fulfill, to a much greater degree than at present, the education potential its creators envisioned."

   Today, education is no less important in our parks-and funding no more prevalent. Business plans completed by nearly 100 parks illustrate that funding for interpretation is short by 48 percent on average. Congress and the administration should ensure that the Park Service has adequate annual funding to meet the growing demand for educational opportunities for all ages.

Take Action

• Write to Congress >> Teachers, students, and parents are encouraged to raise their voices about the important role of national parks as catalysts for a well-rounded education.

Learn More

• Read More >> about the educational capacity of national parks in California. 
  

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