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Our National Parks Have a Popularity Problem
Let’s step into the Wayback Machine and go to 2015, just six years after producer Ken Burns’ documentary miniseries The National Parks: America’s Best Idea had aired on PBS in 2009. At that time,
Read More »Nature Is Good for Your Brain—and Body Image
Nature’s got a lot going for it—and for us. Seeing a breathtaking landscape or experiencing a natural phenomenon typically leaves us feeling appreciative, humbled and filled with awe. You already know some of nature’s
Read More »Parks, People, a Pandemic and Problem-Solving
Being able to get away to a park—whether national, state or local—played an important role in mental and physical health for a lot of us during the first months of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.
Read More »Better Together: Native Knowledge and Western Science
Throughout the United States, Native Americans own and/or manage nearly 95 million acres of deserts and forests, grasslands and mountains—much of it in still-intact habitats. That’s 10 million more acres than the National Park
Read More »Post-Pandemic, Learning to Trust Again from a Gray Whale
The longest recorded migration by a mammal was made by a gray whale. In 2015, a female made a journey of nearly 14,000 miles from Russia to Mexico and back. (Zebras hold the longest
Read More »Five Ways that Travel Makes You More Empathetic
Empathy seems to be in short supply, lately. And it’s no surprise after all we’ve dealt with in the past two years: the coronavirus pandemic, economic insecurity, misinformation and racial injustice, to name just
Read More »Trees: Foundations for Ecosystems and Learning
Unlike Earth Day, which is celebrated on April 22 every year, Arbor Day is a bit of a moving target. While National Arbor Day is always the last Friday in April, many states observe
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