Park Break: A unique learning fellowship for graduate students contemplating a career working in parks, protected areas, or cultural sites
Spend spring break learning in a national park
Park Break is an all-expenses-paid, park-based field seminar for graduate students who are thinking about a career in park management or park-related research and education. Park Break puts you in a national park unit for up to a week's worth of field and classroom activities in close collaboration with park scientists and scholars, managers and administrators, and partner organizations.
The deadline to apply to the March 2012 Park Break session at Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area has passed. We are planning a second Park Break for 2012, tentatively for mid-October in the Boston area, focused on cultural resources issues. Check back here in April for more information.
The link to the application form (currently disabled) is at the bottom of this page. Please read the following information before you apply.
Find out what it's like to manage a national park
The primary goal of Park Break is to let promising graduate students experience the challenges of managing a national park unit. Through instruction from and dialogue with park resource managers, researchers, administrators, interpreters, and other professionals, Park Break participants will begin to understand the complexity of park research and management. This unique program is not offered anywhere else, as it focuses on scientific and intellectual inquiry at the graduate level specifically related to national parks. Although Park Break is open to graduate students of all backgrounds, an additional goal of the program is to provide minority students with experience in national parks in order to facilitate future careers in the field of parks and protected areas research and management.
Who's eligible?
Graduate students (Ph.D. or Master’s level) who are studying in fields related to parks, natural resources, ecotourism, civic engagement, conservation, and cultural heritage. Examples of eligible fields of study include conservation biology, ecotourism, wildlife and fisheries, conservation policy, civic engagement, youth and development, recreation and parks, natural resource management, cultural resource management, landscape architecture, history, geography, archeology, ethnography, museum studies, etc. Students must be currently enrolled at an institute of higher education in either the USA, Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean and actively pursuing a degree. We regret that we cannot accept applications from students elsewhere.
What happens during the week?
Each Park Break is designed around a specific topic. Not only will you explore that topic in depth, you'll see how it relates to the whole range of challenging issues facing park managers today.
A typical Park Break includes:
- Presentations by several top-level personnel at the park, such as the superintendent, assistant superintendent, division chiefs, resource managers, staff subject-matter experts (e.g., biologists, historians, etc.).
- Presentations by outside scientists/scholars who are currently working in the park.
- Presentations by local NGOs, elected officials, personnel from other parks, etc., who are working with the host park or on issues similar to those facing the host park.
- One or more field sessions in the park that illustrate the theme and issues being discussed.
- An excursion into the surrounding community to discuss relevant issues.
In addition, all Park Break participants collaborate to share their experiences by writing a paper for our Park Break Perspectives Series.
What's expected of me?
Park Break is not just about a week in a park — it's intended to create an ongoing community of motivated young professionals. Aside from following the curriculum and activities outlined above, Park Break students are expected to read a packet of background materials before their arrival. Once in-park, you may be assigned a real-life management problem to contemplate during the week, and asked to prepare, as a team, a presentation on proposed solutions that you will offer to the park's staff for discussion and feedback.
Park Break puts you on the path to success
While Park Break is not an employment or internship program, you will be involved with agency personnel who are actively looking to recruit the best young people in the park professions. Park Break was begun in 2007, and already two Park Breakers have been hired by the National Park Service and one by the U.S. Forest Service. Other Park Break alums have embarked on Ph.D. programs. Park Break makes you and your skills visible!
In addition, Park Break students may receive preference for travel scholarships to attend the following George Wright Society Conference on Parks, Protected Areas, and Cultural Sites — the USA's premier inetrdisciplinary professional meeting in the field.
2012 sites and topics
One Park Break seminar has been confirmed for 2012, at Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area (DWGNRA) (March 19–23). If other sessions are added for 2012, you will be notified for them as well.
The topic of the 2012 DWGNRA Park Break session is the creation of a curriculum on sustainable living to be used at the Pocono Environmental Education Center (PEEC). National parks, such as DWGNRA, are often at the center of the resource use equation when examining sustainable living issues. Food, water, energy and shelter requirements intersect and often conflict with land conservation priorities. Today, DWGNRA and the Delaware River confront new challenges from Marcellus Shale drilling to the north (which has the potential to effect water quality), new transmission lines which may bisect the Park as well as the encroachment of the New York and New Jersey suburban housing sprawl at the fringes of the Park.
The Park Break Group Project Topic is to create a curriculum on sustainable living that will target 8th-graders and focus on the resource choices and tradeoffs we need to make as a society. In keeping with PEEC’s interactive approach to teaching in a national park, the curriculum needs to consist of meaningful hands-on activities that reinforce the lessons of sustainability strategies and lifestyle compromises necessary to maintain the planet for the next generation. These activities can be anything from scenarios the students can play out in small learning groups, to fieldwork that involves measuring water flow in park streams, to estimating water and resource use while on the PEEC campus, to interactive exhibits that PEEC may have to construct for the curriculum. An example would be a series of stationary bicycles hooked up to different electrical devices that could be added to the circuit (cell phone chargers, mp3 players, lights, etc.). The interactive exhibit would highlight power requirements for our modern lifestyle. Students would pedal the bicycles and the electrical “load” would be increased or decreased by device type and use.)
The Park Break team will be responsible for creating the content for two 1½-hour classes to be taught at PEEC by our environmental education instructors. This should include background information, Q&A dialogue prompts for instructors, a selection of four hands-on activity related student projects/ tasks to be completed by students during a class, as well as follow-on activities to be complete by students and their teachers back at school.
The Park Break Team will arrive at a definition of sustainability for each project and determine whether student projects/ tasks are stand alone or linked. The team will create a list of resources required for the student activities, where these resources can be acquired or how they can be created, an approximate cost and possible grant opportunities for funding, if necessary.
If you are accepted for Park Break, you will be expected to work as a team to develop the curriculum. This will be the focus of your week in the park, and in addition there will be follow-up work required, entailing approximately 8 hours, in the weeks following the symposium.
Do I have to cover any costs?
Park Break is a fellowship, so all your direct costs — travel to and from the park, lodging and meals while in the park, and any required materials — are paid for. You are responsible for any non-essential, discretionary expenses you may incur. You also will need to supply common field gear that may be desirable for the session, such as backpacks, binoculars, cameras, foul-weather clothing, and so on.
Who are the organizers?
Park Break is organized by the National Park Service (through the host parks) and the U.S. Geological Survey in concert with the George Wright Society, the USA's leading professional association for researchers, resource managers, administrators, educators, and other professionals who work in or on behalf of parks, protected areas, and cultural sites. GWS puts on Park Break in cooperation with several partners. Past partners have included Colorado State University, Geological Society of America, Student Conservation Association, and Texas A&M University.
Sounds great! How do I apply?
When applications are being accepted for the next Park Break, a link to the application will appear here.