National Parks Week

 

Grand Tetons National Park/Photo by Nate Foong on Unsplash

429

That’s number of National Parks in the United States.  These include national seashores, historical sites, and recreation areas.  To celebrate them, the National Parks Service, part of the Department of the Interior, is devoting April 20^th through April 28^th as National Park Week.

To kick off the week of celebration, and to showcase the variety and grandeur of our National Park system, April 20^th is a day of no entrance fee into any of the parks.  (The NPS offers six days in the year with no entrance fees.)

Each day of National Parks Week has a different theme:

Saturday, April 20: Discovery. What will you discover? A new place, a new interesting fact, a new activity... To kick off National Park Week and encourage you make that new discovery, entrance fees are waived on April 20!

Sunday, April 21: Volunteers. Use your time and talents as a volunteer in your national parks. Find opportunities to volunteer for a single event or long term position.

Monday, April 22: Earth Day. Join the global celebration encouraging education and stewardship of the planet's natural resources. Many parks are hosting volunteer events. You can also find ways to practice conservation at home.

Tuesday, April 23: Innovation. History of our nation's innovation is preserved in national parks. Also learn about the innovative projects happening in parks or through our programs today.

Wednesday, April 24: Workforce Wednesday. Meet our incredible workforce of employees, interns, fellows, volunteers, contractors, partners, and more. Consider joining our team!

Thursday, April 25: Youth Engagement. Calling the rising generation of stewards! Learn about the opportunities for youth and young adults to get involved and see what your peers are up to.

Friday, April 26: Community Connections. Learn about the important work our programs and partners are doing in communities across the country both within and outside of our park boundaries.

Saturday, April 27: Junior Ranger Day. For kids (and kids at heart), become a Junior Ranger through in-person or online activities to learn about special places or topics. You may even earn a Junior Ranger badge!

Sunday, April 28: Arts in Parks. Home of many arts past and present, find your muse creating arts within parks. Also learn about preserving and practicing arts in your communities through the work of our programs and partners.

13 of these National Parks are in Texas.  They are Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument in Fritch, Amistad National Recreation Area in Del Rio, Big Bend National Park in the big bend of the Rio Grande near Alpine, Big Thicket National Preserve in Beaumont, Blackwell School National Historic Site at Fort Davis, Butterfield Overland Historic Trail that covers Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, Chamizal National Memorial in El Paso, El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail in Texas and Louisiana, El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail in Texas and New Mexico, Fort Davis National Historic Site in Fort Davis, Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Salt Flat, Lake Meredith National Recreation Area in Fritch, Lyndon B Johnson National Historical Park in Johnson City, Padre Island National Seashore in Corpus Christi, Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park in Brownsville, Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River in Southwest Texas, San Antonio Missions National Historical Park in San Antonio, and Waco Mammoth National Monument in Waco. 

 

 

Big Bend National Park/Photo by Caleb Fisher on Unsplash

Summer Recreation - Find a National Park

Looking for an outdoor getaway this summer? The U.S. National Park Service's "Find a Park" page features a map of the U.S. enabling you to click on a particular state and see where national parks are located in that state.  If downloading a map of a national park is taking too long, national park enthusiast and park ranger Matt Holly has collected park maps to streamline download. Holly started his site, http://npmaps.com/ , during the 2013 government shutdown, but has continued adding maps since then. Eventually he plans to have every National Park Service Map on his site.

National Park Service Releases LGBT History Study

Part of the National Parks Service's initiatives is the preservation of historic places connected with Civil Rights. In the past they have supported "such notable sites as Women’s Rights National Historic Park at Seneca Falls, New York (1980); Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, Atlanta, Georgia (1980); Brown vs, Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka Kansas (1992); Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site in Little Rock, Arkansas (1998); the Votes for Women History Trail (2009); Manzanar National Historic Site, Independence, California (1992); and the Caesar E. Chavez National Monument, Keane, California (2012). Now the Parks Service has undertaken a theme study to identify places and events associated with the story of LGBTQ Americans. The study's goals are:

• engaging scholars, preservationists and community members to identify, research, and tell the stories of LGBTQ associated properties;
• encouraging national parks, national heritage areas, and other affiliated areas to interpret LGBTQ stories associated with them;
• identifying, documenting, and nominating LGBTQ-associated sites as national historic landmarks;
• increasing the number of listings of LGBTQ-associated properties in the National Register of Historic Places.

Unveiled on Oct. 11, 2016, National Coming Out Day, LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History is available online. You can also download individual chapters or articles.

Celebrate the National Park Service's 100th Birthday

On August 25, 2016 the National Parks Service (NPS) turned 100.  To celebrate the NPS created 99 Ways to Find Your Park, a linked list of 99 activities people can do in urban, nature, and historic parks. They also created the hashtag #FindYourPark for those wanting to post a picture or video of a park experience.

National Park Week, April 17-25

Celebrate National Park Week by visiting one or more of the nation's 392 National Parks for free Saturday, April 17 - Sunday, April 25, 2010. On Saturday, April 24, National Junior Ranger Day, children can take part in kid-friendly activities and earn a junior ranger patch. National parks are also hosting special events and volunteer projects on Earth Day, April 22, and throughout the week.