Acadia Teacher Fellow participants learn about eelgrass monitoring.
CREDIT NPS Photo
The
National Park Service (NPS) is recruiting six Acadia Teacher Fellows
to spend the summer learning about Acadia National Park’s diverse
natural and cultural resources, and ways to protect them. Teachers
will be selected to work on Mount Desert Island and at Schoodic
Point. In addition, the NPS will select one teacher to work at Saint
Croix Island International Historic Site in Calais.
Acadia
National Park invites full-time, K-12 public classroom school
teachers to apply online by March 1 at
For
more information on the Acadia Teacher Fellowship program (Mount
Desert Island and Schoodic Point), please call 207-288-1312. For
Saint Croix Island International Historic Site in Calais, Maine call
207-454-3871.
The
Acadia Teacher Fellowship program strives to connect teachers and
students to national parks. Priority is given to classroom teachers
from public schools with students who are underrepresented,
economically disadvantaged, or have limited access to parks. Priority
is also given to teachers from Maine schools who do not requiring
housing. “Many classroom teachers dream about living in and
learning about our national parks,” said Superintendent Kevin
Schneider. “Acadia Teacher Fellowships are helping make those
dreams come true.”
For
six weeks during the summer, teacher fellows will engage in a variety
of activities that will vary depending on location. Teachers may
interact with park visitors on public programs, along carriage roads
and on hiking trails. They may attend ranger-led interpretive
programs, be given place-based training, participate in citizen
science activities, interact with park professionals, and much
more. Teacher fellows will be asked to create a lesson plan related
to Acadia’s resources to take back to their classroom and share
with other educators. In addition, they will learn about turning
their schoolyards into outdoor learning environments.
Newly
acquired, first-hand knowledge of our national parks will enrich the
teacher’s classroom curriculum throughout the school year and, in
particular, during National Park Week in April during which teacher
fellows can introduce a larger student audience to the important
mission of the National Park Service.
Acadia
Teacher Fellows will receive weekly stipends, teaching materials from
Eastern National, the park’s bookstore partner, and shared park
housing as available. Additional benefits include a free class field
trip to Acadia or a national park site near their school, plus
assistance with designing an outdoor classroom at their home school.
The
Acadia Teacher Fellowship program at Acadia National Park is
generously funded by Friends of Acadia. Additional funding from
Dawnland, LLC has allowed the NPS to expand the program to Saint
Croix Island International Historic Site.
For
more information, please visit www.nps.gov/acad or call 207-288-3338.
Join online conversations on Facebook (www.facebook.com/AcadiaNPS),
Twitter (twitter.com/AcadiaNPS), and Instagram
(www.instagram.com/acadianps).
www.nps.gov
About
the National Park Service: More than 20,000 National Park Service
employees care for America's 417 national parks and work with
communities across the nation to help preserve local history and
create close-to-home recreational opportunities. Visit us at
www.nps.gov, and on Facebook (www.facebook.com/nationalparkservice),
Twitter (www.twitter.com/natlparkservice), and YouTube
(www.youtube.com/nationalparkservice).
