With the help of an America’s Best Idea grant, Grand Teton National Park provided experiential outdoor opportunities for over 40 local underserved Latino students. The Children in Nature Multicultural...
America's Best Idea
How We Help
Inspired by the Ken Burns’ film “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” which originally premiered on PBS in September 2009, the America’s Best Idea program connects diverse, underserved and under-engaged populations throughout the United States with their national parks in innovative and meaningful ways through a variety of environmental, adventure, historical, and other activities.
Join us. Support America’s Best Idea and other National Park Foundation programs »
Success Story
AMERICA'S BEST IDEA VIDEOS
America's Best Idea Photos
America’s Best Idea Grantees
Sequoia National Park is partnering with City of Visalia Transit to provide transportation to the park for local low-income youth from our Rangers in the Classroom program to visit with their families.
The focus of this project is to bring Native American students to Wind Cave National Park to hear from their tribal elders the cultural importance of Wind Cave and to introduce those students to the National Park Service stewardship concept including bison conservation, endangered species reintroduction, prescribed and wildland fire, and the local ecosystems.
In 2010, Sitka National Historical Park received an ABI grant so Alutiiq elders and young people from Kodiak could journey to Sitka to learn lost elements of their culture from the Tlingit. This project will complete the circle by making it possible for elders and young people from Sitka's Tlingit tribe to journey to Kodiak to further the connection of the two tribal cultures.
Sequoia National Park is partnering with City of Visalia Transit to provide transportation to the park for local low-income youth from our Rangers in the Classroom program to visit with their families.
The "In a New Light" program will expand upon the foundation laid through a 2010 ABI grant to engage 25 at-risk teens in the beauty of five national parks, as they embark on a photographic journey that will result in a traveling photo exhibit and feature-length documentary.
The project will produce two short (2-3 minute) podcasts highlighting the people who traveled the trail and relating how their experiences shapes New Mexicans today.
This project will deliver much needed educational support materials for students, install an aquarium in the local elementary school, and procure books for each classroom and the local community center in this remote community vital to the park.
Three distinct groups of underserved youth will come together to examine and interpret Bethune's Legacy in a three day leadership workshop. Participants will also complete 20 hours of volunteer service in a national park.
The staff and park partners will restore 8 miles along the Desoto Scout Trail in partnership with Boys Scouts and promote the trail through the "10,000 Steps" program in which park visitors are given log books and pedometers to track their steps on the trail.
This project will offer discovery daypacks filled with interpretive materials for use by youth groups who would not ordinarily have the opportunity for an outdoor camping experience.
Conoce tu Parque (Get to Know Your Park) improves Latino awareness of the national park system, conservation, and the many educational opportunities offered at parks through the development of a 32-page bilingual coloring book for children and an accompanying brochure for adults, both of which describe how national parks function.
A youth leadership academy will develop local high school students as leaders in the local Latino community with the goal of expanding understanding and support for the National Park Service and growth in park stewardship with this non-traditional park audience.
Through two different approaches, the park will engage both military families in various educational and recreational activities as well as high-school-aged youth through employment to participate in service-learning projects at area national parks.
This project builds off a 2010 ABI grant to expand a multidisciplinary empowerment program from 11 young women to 50, which will bring back previous participants as mentors as all women build self-esteem while they connect to the natural world by spending time on the Delaware River.
Through a partnership with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston, 11 youth age 11-14 will build on their understanding of Cape Cod National Seashore from their participation in the First Bloom program via three day trips and one overnight trip to learn about the park's resources and recreational opportunities.
Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail will host three informal music events at three specific communities along the trail corridor bringing together the local Hawaiian community to foster and restore their connection with a sense of place through music and talk story.
FEATURED PARTNER
America’s Best Idea” is made possible through the generous support of L.L. Bean, DISNEY, the Anschutz Foundation, and the Ahmanson Foundation.
