This Land Is Your Land: Parks and Public Spaces

Enjoyment and Respect Through Education

Rudy Mancke showing off a silver haired bat.

http://54.245.164.12:3000/scdl/items/csw_gw_002.jpg

<p>With the advent of technology and how it affects our everyday lives, it is sometimes difficult to see our connection to the natural world. As stewards of the environment, we need to step outside of the office and reconnect to nature so that we can better understand and to see the effects of our actions on our environment. To truly understand and respect the environment, we need to see ourselves as part of nature, not above nature.  Learning about nature can come from books, museums, and exhibits, but also from directly experiencing the natural environment. Uniquely, parks encompass all of these things and more—the first visit is the key.</p>

Wildlife and People

Building the Parks

Interpretation of Parks

Landscapes

Protecting the Parks

Stewards of the Parks

National Park Service employees encounter a deer on a snowmobile ride to Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming.

http://purl.clemson.edu/0D3422B176D2D375CDE3B0F6BDE4E793

http://54.245.164.12:3000/scdl/items/yel_1_010a.jpg

<p>The parks are the perfect place for humans and wildlife to interact without the cages of zoos. Since the formation of the very first park, park rangers have been living amongst bears, snakes, spiders, bison, poisonous vegetation, alligators, and many more frightening and friendly species. Maybe through our experience of interacting with and respecting the various forms of wildlife in the parks we may better coexist amongst each other. </p>

Perhaps the most famous animal in the parks. Park visitors get out of their cars to take pictures of a black bear, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Park visitors get out of their cars to take pictures of a black bear, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

http://purl.clemson.edu/99590F2E4515D1D1DAF0A445EC531CE3

http://54.245.164.12:3000/scdl/items/GRSM04525.jpg

Bear calendar interpretive sign, Sugarlands Visitor Center, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina, Tennessee.

Photograph of bear calendar in Sugarlands Visitor Center. 

http://purl.clemson.edu/A63E5B5DDF7A902149E1D1E71E22EF0F

http://54.245.164.12:3000/scdl/items/GRSM05844.jpg

Bear on side of car with photographer taking its picture.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Negative collection

http://54.245.164.12:3000/scdl/items/GRSM09286.jpg

This Land Is Your Land: Parks and Public Spaces

Coexistence in the Parks

Coexistence in the Parks