Why I love the national parks

When I arrived in Washington, DC, I knew I’d be living in a place unlike anywhere else in the country. I knew I’d be living at the seat of government. I knew I’d be living in the shadows of our nation’s forefathers. I knew I’d be living among monuments and museums. What I didn’t know is that I would be living among national parks.

At home in Spokane, it’s a four-hour drive to West to Mount Rainier National Park, and a four-hour drive East to Glacier National Park. Here, I hop on my bicycle and ride a few miles to the George Washington Parkway, cross the Potomac River, and find myself in the National Mall, surrounded by presidential memorials and monuments to American veterans. Each is a national park. I walk throughout the city and find myself at Ford’s Theatre, the site of President Lincoln’s assassination. It’s a national park as well. I stand outside the White House, the symbol of American democracy, and recognize I’m standing before a park.

I’ve loved the national parks as long as I can remember. The sulfur of Yellowstone National Park is the smell of adventure. The alpenglow of Grand Teton National Park is the portrait of natural beauty. The lava of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is the re-creation of Earth’s earliest days. The parks preserve the very best of America. And this year, I’m starting to see that the national parks idea is bigger than just wild places and open lands. The national parks are the story of us.

I’ve explored many of America’s national parks, and I’ve never been disappointed. Just the opposite, really: each park I visit becomes my new favorite. I hike through Glacier National Park and decide that this, above all others, is the finest of the parks. Its scraped, towering walls and quiet lakes are magnificent, stunning, beautiful. I drive through Crater Lake National Park and recognize that I was mistaken, that this is the best park, its pure clear waters and sparkling streams unlike any place on the planet. I ascend to the top of Lassen Volcanic National Park and look out over the Cascade Range, hot springs and forests and rocky outcrops beneath me, and imagine I’m standing at the top of the world. This, certainly, must be the best of the parks. But then I wander through the forests of Redwoods National Park, stunned by the gigantic trees around me, trees that have lived for thousands of years, and feel that I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. This park becomes my favorite.

The national parks in Washington, DC, aren’t visually stunning. There are no mountains, no lakes, no forests. These parks are tiny…they fit into city blocks, into street intersections, into houses. I can’t get lost as I explore these parks. No wildlife greets me, no campfires sparkle and crackle, no trails lead off into unknown places. But these places are national parks for a reason. Like all the others, from Olympic to Acadia, they tell the story of our nation. I’m not just looking at a building or a sculpture. I’m looking at America.

I love the national parks because when I visit a park, I become an American. There’s magic in the parks, and it’s not just in the wildlife and geology. It’s that millions of Americans have come before me, and I’m sharing their experience. I hike through Paradise at Mount Rainier National Park, surrounded by wildflowers and sub-alpine fir, but surrounded by something else as well: memories of the past. This was a place that John Muir once came, a place where he once felt the same wonder as me. He wrote that it was “the most luxuriant and the most extravagantly beautiful of all the alpine gardens I ever beheld in all my mountain-top wanderings.” I feel the same. Muir and I are separated by time, but connected by experience. And the park is our medium.

The national parks, like America, are a story of shared experience. Parents take their children to parks and share memories of their own first visit, when their own parents brought them to the same overlook, the same campground, the same waterfall. In the national parks, the stories of grandparents and great-grandparents pass down through time. In the national parks, we walk where our ancestors once came.

Before I came to Washington, DC, I thought there were two classifications of parks: the big and wild parks where we preserve nature, and the small, simple parks where we preserve history. But the truth is, all our parks preserve history. And really, it’s broader than that: our parks preserve America. Our experiences, our ideals, our memories -- each is held for safekeeping in our national parks.

The national parks are where America comes together. Not just because families, friends, and strangers come to the parks together, but also because true understanding of America only comes with an understanding of the national parks. When we visit a national park, we visit not just an American place, but also the shared experience of being American. Step inside Ford’s Theatre, and walk the path of an American president when the very idea of America was in jeopardy. Visit the Jefferson Memorial, and experience revolutionary words that still define American freedoms. Walk past a long black wall on the National Mall, and see America starkly etched into smooth black granite. The parks don’t just represent America – they create a new America. The parks are our living American soul.

I’ve written previously about ways that we can improve education in this country. Here’s another idea: we should be deliberate about sharing the national parks experience with students. I’ve had the good fortune to work in a school district that supports experiential education, and I’ve been able to lead students on expeditions to Puget Sound, to Orcas Island, and, yes, to Yellowstone National Park. Out of all my teaching experiences, from lectures to labs to science fair projects, none have been as successful and rich as my student expeditions to natural places. It’s not just that students learn more about science, or that they gain a sense of how science fits into the broader world. It’s that students are, literally, becoming Americans. At Fort Worden, at Camp Orkila, and at Mammoth Hot Springs, students are sharing in the experiences of the generations who have come before them.

As educators, we put a major emphasis on preparing kids for citizenship in a democratic society. The national parks are an ideal setting for learning like this. When we take students into nature, or to a historic place, and teach them to connect with their surroundings, we suddenly see changes in students’ perception of the world. Talk to any teacher who has traveled with students, and you’ll hear the same story from each of them: students mature during experiences like these. An experiential, learning-focused expedition to a national park, national historic site, or unique natural place has the potential to teach students lessons they don’t otherwise learn at school. A trip to a national park is an elegant solution to the challenge of teaching students what it means to be an American.

When they return from expeditions, my students are filled with stories. They talk about new friendships. They talk about new discoveries. They talk about new insights. They talk about themselves. Their stories and their conversations are unlike those they normally have at school. Their behavior is more mature. Their ideas are more developed. Their interactions are more grown up. In essence, they are becoming adults. They are becoming Americans. Expeditionary learning, even a simple overnight experience, has the potential to help students grow in a way that classroom learning cannot. These programs are not cheap. Weeklong expeditions typically cost $300 to $400 per student. Even a one-night outing can cost $100. Multiply that by twenty students, and in an age of budget cuts, it’s tough to justify expenses like those. But the learning that occurs when students get away from school has real value. Many students never have an experience in a wild or historic place. Not with their families. Not with their schools. Not ever. Providing students an opportunity to interface with nature, with history, and with the ideas and ideals of America, has value. It should be a part of every student’s education.

I ride my bike across the Potomac, back to my home in Virginia. Ninety minutes to the West sits Shenandoah National Park, dedicated by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936. Its forests, trails, and roadways show the Appalachian Mountains as they were when our nation was young. Two hours to the East is Assateague Island National Seashore, with wild horses roaming throughout sandy flats. This was the America of our earliest European settlers. Two hours to the South is George Washington’s Birthplace National Monument, the earliest home of America’s first leader and greatest war hero. Ninety minutes to the North lays Antietam National Battlefield, site of one of America’s most bloody battles, where a Union victory emboldened President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Here in Washington, DC, like no place I have lived before, I am surrounded by parks. I am surrounded by history. I am surrounded by America. And, like my students, I’m becoming a part of it.