Historical Vegetation, Fuel Loads, and Integrated Resource Information Systems for Bryce Canyon National Park

The research has four primary Objectives: 1. Map Bryce Canyon National Park to historic vegetation type by use of relocated historic photographs, inference from similar regions, and results of computer simulations using estimated fire return frequencies; 2. Map fuel loads and fuel model types throughout Bryce Canyon National Park; 3. Classify and map areas by fire groups using information on vegetation composition and response to fire; and 4. Develop a written and pictorial document to portray vegetation change in historical time. These objectives are integrated into an overall program to determine the role of fire in maintaining the previous historical vegetation composition, to determine the potential for use of fire as a tool to reconstruct historic vegetation, and to determine fuel management opportunities and problems resulting from current conditions. All map information is to be digitized as SAGIS GIS maps and entered into a landscape simulation model for use by Park Service personnel.

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Remembering the Battle of Pezi Sla (Greasy Grass—aka Little Bighorn) with the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho Victory Riders: An Autoethnographic Photo Essay

Culture Studies &#x2194 Critical Methodologies ◽

10.1177/1532708621991128 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 153270862199112

Author(s):

Elena Tajima Creef ◽

Carl J. Petersen

Keyword(s):

American History ◽

National Park ◽

National Park Service ◽

Northern Cheyenne ◽

Park Service ◽

Photo Essay

If one travels to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Park in late June, one can witness at least three events that simultaneously take place each year commemorating what has been called “one of the great mythic and mysterious military battles of American history” (Frosch, 2010). The National Park Service rangers give “battle talks” on the hour to visiting tourists. Two miles away, the privately run U.S. Cavalry School also performs a scripted reenactment called “Custer’s Last Ride”—with riders who have been practicing all week to play the role of soldiers from the doomed regiment of Custer’s 7th Cavalry. On this same day, a traveling band of men, women, and youth from the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho Nations who have journeyed by horseback and convoy from the Dakotas and Wyoming will reach Last Stand Hill to remember this “Victory Day” from 1876—one that historians have called the “last stand of the Indians” during the period of conflict known as the “Great Sioux War.” This photo essay offers an autoethnographic account of what some have dubbed the annual “Victory Ride” to Montana based upon my participation as a non-Native supporter of this Ride in 2017, 2018, and 2019.

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A Public's Awareness of Regional Parks and Park Management Agencies with Implications for Management-oriented Interpretation

Journal of Interpretation Research ◽

10.1177/109258720601100207 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 59-64

Author(s):

Carin E. Vadala ◽

Robert D. Bixler ◽

William E. Hammitt

Keyword(s):

Resource Management ◽

National Parks ◽

National Park ◽

National Park Service ◽

South Florida ◽

Park Management ◽

Evaluation Strategies ◽

Park Service ◽

Management Issues

South Florida summer residents (n=1806) from five counties (Broward, Collier, Lee, Miami-Dade, and Monroe Counties) were asked to recall the names of two units of the National Park Service and, when prompted, to recognize each of the four national park units located in south Florida. Only 8.4% of respondents could name two units of the National Park Service, yet when prompted many more stated that they had at least heard of the national parks in south Florida. Interpreters may be able to help raise visitor awareness of resource management issues by including information about the role of the agency in their talks or as part of their interpretive theme. Suggestions for further research and evaluation strategies are provided.

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Speculating on the Role of Context in the Outcomes of Interpretive Programs

Journal of Interpretation Research ◽

10.1177/109258721301800204 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 18 (2) ◽

pp. 61-78 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Robert B. Powell ◽

Marc J. Stern

Keyword(s):

National Park ◽

National Park Service ◽

Urban Centers ◽

Resource Quality ◽

Park Service ◽

Interpretive Programs ◽

Outdoor Programs ◽

Program Characteristics ◽

The U.S

Based on data from 272 live interpretive programs conducted across 24 units of the U.S. National Park Service, we investigate the influence of context upon interpretive programs and visitor outcomes. We first examined whether outcomes vary based upon the size of the audience and its age makeup; program characteristics such as duration, topic, and type; and characteristics of the setting including proximity to urban centers, program location (indoor vs. outdoor), and resource quality. We then examine whether different program or interpreter characteristics operate differently in different contexts by examining their relationships to visitor outcomes in four context pairings: programs with mostly children vs. mostly adults in the audience; culturally focused vs. environmentally focused programs; programs conducted in remote vs. urban parks; and indoor vs. outdoor programs. The findings suggest that a small number of program and interpreter characteristics may operate differently within different contexts. Based on these results, we propose hypotheses regarding which program characteristics appear to be more or less beneficial (or harmful) to generating desired visitor outcomes in different contexts.

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First Season's Progress Report on Vegetation Mapping of Grand Teton National Park

The UW National Parks Service Research Station Annual Reports ◽

10.13001/uwnpsrc.2002.3497 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 26 ◽

pp. 33-34

Author(s):

G. Jones ◽

D. Ehle

Keyword(s):

National Park ◽

National Park Service ◽

Accuracy Assessment ◽

Field Work ◽

Vegetation Mapping ◽

Vegetation Classification ◽

Slope Aspect ◽

Grand Teton National Park ◽

Fuel Loads ◽

Park Service

The National Park Service and the USGS Biological Resources Division have jointly established a program to map the vegetation in all of the Park Service's units with roughly the same methodology and using the same vegetation classification scheme. Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming has been selected for mapping in 2002 and 2003 as part of this national program. At Grand Teton National Park, the Bureau of Reclamation will interpret aerial photos and map the vegetation. The entities mapped by the Bureau will be related to vegetation types from a classification to be produced by NatureServe, an organization representing natural heritage programs and conservation data centers throughout North and Central America. The data on which the vegetation classification is based will be collected by the staff from the Wyoming Natural Diversity Database, working with National Park Service and NatureServe scientists. In conjunction with the vegetation classification and mapping, Park Service personnel will produce a model to predict fuel loads throughout the Park. The model will predict amounts and types of fuel in the vegetation classification units, and will elucidate the relationship between fuel loads and variables such as slope, aspect, and elevation. Field work for the Grand Teton National Park Vegetation Mapping Project is to be conducted over three summers. The effort in the first two summers will be dedicated to vegetation data collection, and the third summer will be dedicated to on-the-ground accuracy assessment of the preliminary vegetation map created by the photo interpreters.

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Reflections on Research: Race and the Virginia Blue Ridge

Historical Archaeology ◽

10.1007/s41636-021-00295-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Audrey Horning

Keyword(s):

National Park ◽

Public Support ◽

Blue Ridge ◽

Documentary Evidence ◽

Family Farms ◽

Race And Racism ◽

White Families ◽

Shenandoah National Park ◽

Park Service

AbstractIn the 1930s, Shenandoah National Park was established in the Virginia Blue Ridge through the displacement of nearly 500 white families. In recent decades, my scholarship and that of others focused upon the manner in which hackneyed stereotypes about backward mountaineers were mobilized to garner public support for the condemnation of family farms and, in some cases, the institutionalization, sterilization, and incarceration of some of the most impoverished. But, in focusing solely upon the 20th century and the impacts on the white displaced, this research has perpetrated structural violence by obscuring the role of race and racism in the wider Blue Ridge. Archaeological and documentary evidence from the 1990s National Park Service–funded “Survey of Rural Mountain Settlement” is reexamined and reconsidered to begin the process of redressing the silencing of African American histories in the Blue Ridge and surrounding valley and piedmont regions.

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Central Place Foraging Characteristics of Beavers (Castor Canadensis) and Habitat Modeling in Grand Teton National Park

The UW National Parks Service Research Station Annual Reports ◽

10.13001/uwnpsrc.2013.3975 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 36 ◽

pp. 18-27

Author(s):

William Gribb ◽

Henry Harlow

Keyword(s):

National Park ◽

Castor Canadensis ◽

The United States ◽

Central Place ◽

Habitat Modeling ◽

Central Place Foraging ◽

Natural Landscape ◽

Mountain Climbing ◽

Park Service

A significant role of the National Park Service in the United States is the preservation of pristine landscapes. The natural landscape offers the visitor the opportunity to enjoy the wonders of nature and its processes to create beautiful vistas, soaring mountains, and the interplay of vegetation communities. The visitor to the park can be a passive recreationist and observe the landscape or be an active recreationist and experience the landscape through hiking, biking, mountain climbing and a range of other activities. The key linkage between the active and passive recreationist is the landscape that they are experiencing, in one perspective or the other. Any disruption of that natural landscape diminishes the experience. Unfortunately, the perception of the disruption varies with each individual. The trail to get to a scenic vista can be overlooked by some observers, while others believe it is an example of the devastation of human impact.

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Varying Vegetation Composition, Respiration and Photosynthesis Decrease Temporal Variability of the CO2 Sink in a Boreal Bog

Ecosystems ◽

10.1007/s10021-019-00434-1 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 23 (4) ◽

pp. 842-858 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Aino Korrensalo ◽

Lauri Mehtätalo ◽

Pavel Alekseychik ◽

Salli Uljas ◽

Ivan Mammarella ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Vegetation Change ◽

Ecosystem Respiration ◽

Net Ecosystem Exchange ◽

Vegetation Composition ◽

Nonlinear Mixed Effects Model ◽

Gross Photosynthesis ◽

Growing Seasons ◽

Ecosystem Level ◽

Spatially Varying

Abstract We quantified the role of spatially varying vegetation composition in seasonal and interannual changes in a boreal bog’s CO2 uptake. We divided the spatially heterogeneous site into six microform classes based on plant species composition and measured their net ecosystem exchange (NEE) using chamber method over the growing seasons in 2012–2014. A nonlinear mixed-effects model was applied to assess how the contributions of microforms with different vegetation change temporally, and to upscale NEE to the ecosystem level to be compared with eddy covariance (EC) measurements. Both ecosystem respiration (R) and gross photosynthesis (PG) were the largest in high hummocks, 894–964 (R) and 969–1132 (PG) g CO2 m−2 growing season−1, and decreased toward the wetter microforms. NEE had a different spatial pattern than R and PG; the highest cumulative seasonal CO2 sink was found in lawns in all years (165–353 g CO2 m−2). Microforms with similar wetness but distinct vegetation had different NEE, highlighting the importance of vegetation composition in regulating CO2 sink. Chamber-based ecosystem-level NEE was smaller and varied less interannually than the EC-derived estimate, indicating a need for further research on the error sources of both methods. Lawns contributed more to ecosystem-level NEE (55–78%) than their areal cover within the site (21.5%). In spring and autumn, lawns had the highest NEE, whereas in midsummer differences among microforms were small. The contributions of all microforms to the ecosystem-level NEE varied seasonally and interannually, suggesting that spatially heterogeneous vegetation composition could make bog CO2 uptake temporally more stable.

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National Park Interpretation and Place-Based Education: An Integrative Literature Review

Journal of Experiential Education ◽

10.1177/1053825920979626 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 105382592097962

Author(s):

Steph N. Dean

Keyword(s):

National Park ◽

Meaning Making ◽

Approaches To Learning ◽

Integrative Review ◽

Local Setting ◽

Park Service ◽

Park Interpretation ◽

Place Based Education ◽

The Rich

Background: Both national park (NP) interpretation and place-based education (PBE) approach learning by applying the unique attributes of a place to facilitate meaning-making experiences within learners. Despite the similarities between these two place-centered pedagogies, there is a limited amount of collaboration between NP interpretative services and school systems engaged with PBE. Purpose: Within this integrative review, my purpose is to fully consider both NP interpretation and PBE to present a comprehensive understanding of the two types of pedagogies. Methodology/Approach: Following an integrative review methodology, I use three different databases to access relevant empirical and theoretical articles. I evaluate and analyze each article separately, then methodically integrate the two place-centered pedagogies. Findings/Conclusions: There are some key similarities between ideologies and epistemologies, goals, approaches to learning, and content matter of NP interpretation and PBE. There are also considerable differences relating to perceptions of learning, the incorporation of the local setting, and the role of the community. Implications: A collaboration between the National Park Service (NPS) and place-based educators has the potential to open up a wealth of possibilities when it comes to learning about and caring for the rich ecology, history, and culture of a given place.

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