NATIONAL PARKS AS NATURAL CLASSROOMS: NEXT GENERATION GEOSCIENCE AT ACADIA NATIONAL PARK

National Parks, many of which protect superlative field examples of geological resources, represent a fertile venue for cultivating geoscience educational experiences that meet all three dimensions of the Next Generation Science Standards – science & engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and cross-cutting concepts. The landscape at Acadia National Park exhibits evidence of the Wisconsin glaciation, as well as the Paleozoic Appalachian orogenies. For many years, the park environmental education staff offered a sixth grade geology-themed field trip as a capstone for students who already completed their earth science unit. In response to the release of the Next Generation Science Standards, the field trip has been redesigned as an inquiry-based introduction to select History of Earth and Earth Systems standards. Students learn to interpret surface and bedrock features in the park, constructing explanations and developing models to account for their observations. As teachers across the country grapple with implementation of the new standards, they can look to National Parks as natural partners with whom to develop hands-on curricula supporting the concepts and practices of geoscience.