New York’s National Parks Make Great Classrooms

A team of Brooklyn College faculty members and a handful of administrators recently took a break from summer classes and research to meet with National Parks officials to learn how they could better use New York City’s parks in their classrooms.

The group met at Ft. Wadsworth, just over the Verrazano Bridge in Staten Island, and were joined by colleagues from the College of Staten Island. The two colleges had begun a partnership four years ago in which their schools of education learned ways to teach the k-12 student population about the area’s parks. This meeting, held in late June, was the first step in an effort to engage faculty members of all disciplines at both campuses on ways the parks can be integrated into classroom assignments—what’s known in education circles as place-based learning.

Undergraduate Dean Donna Wilson said that place-based learning has been a fixture in education for years but more so at the elementary, middle, and secondary levels, rather than at colleges and universities, where the concept has only picked up steam in recent years. Certainly many Brooklyn College professors have always integrated outside-the-classroom experiences into their courses. But this latest meeting was the first step to making more faculty members aware of the resources the parks have to offer and to find out ways that the BC-CSI partnership can help faculty members.

Professors from varied disciplines – from history and political science to education, physics and drama – converged on a cloudy day at the fort that once protected the area’s harbors from attack, and heard presentations from representatives from several of the area’s national parks.

There are nearly 400 national parks in the country and most have educational partnerships with museums and other educational institutions. There are 10 sites managed by the National Parks Service in New York City and Northern New Jersey, and the learning opportunities abound.

Tour the lower harbor and understand how it developed geographically and how settlements developed.  At Great Kills, study the imperiled salt marshes and check out one of the largest model airplane fields while you’re there.  Watch bird migration at Jamaica Bay. Learn about art, history, and science at the African Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan.  Go to Federal Hall, where George Washington gave his inauguration address. There’s always Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty—where else to learn about America’s epic saga of immigration?

The professors, administrators and parks officials hashed out logistical concerns (like how long the commute is to Ellis Island), shared stories of previous placed-based learning experiences, and discussed what each college can do to help foster more such learning experiences. Many of the participants suggested the possibility of a campus liaison for place-based learning who could help with logistics. Others offered that a central website that listed the classroom projects that professors devised would be an invaluable tool to encourage other professors. To help offset the costs of entry to the parks, the group even discussed the idea of applying for a grant to create some kind of CUNY “passport” that would allow students free entry to the parks.

“Anything we can do to get our students to leave their comfort zone by going outside of Brooklyn College is a good thing,” said BC history professor Jocelyn Wills. “I’ve had colleagues tell me that our students can’t do this kind of stuff because their lives are too complicated. But I’ve found that they end up taking ownership of the projects I give them where they have to really get out in the city and do research.”