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ABSTRACT
The authors explored barriers and motivations associated with high school and middle school classes’ participation in National Park educational programming through interviews with school administrators and surveys with teachers within the immediate vicinity of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Although teachers commonly cited financial barriers to participation, administrators suggested that these were rarely insurmountable. Moreover, perceptions of such constraints did not help to predict teachers’ intentions to participate. Rather, teachers’ intentions to participate were most strongly predicted by their degree of comfort with relating park programs to the subject matter of their courses, their perceptions regarding whether or not the programs will enhance students’ academic achievement, and their expectations of whether the programs will expose students to environmental themes in an enjoyable manner. Results suggest the importance of classroom visits and direct communications with teachers emphasizing that programs are fun, relevant learning experiences that address academic requirements for multiple subjects and are relatively easy to incorporate into pre-existing curricula.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research was supported by a grant from the Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Notes
1. At the time of the research, GSMNP staff felt that elementary programs were saturated and that middle and high school students were being underserved.
2. This number is an estimation based on figures provided by administrators.
3. Teachers who responded to surveys administered by the researcher reported less agreement with the statement: “The National Park Service provides excellent programs for students” (t-statistic = 3.8; p < .001).
4. Validity checks involved comparing answers to survey items with inverse (opposite) wording. If opposite meanings were indicated by responses on the same surveys, the surveys were excluded.