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AHSLC Offers Seed Grants to Encourage Research at Network Parks
The Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center is offering seed grants of up to $2,000 to help encourage research in the four principal NPS sites of our Network: Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, Obed Wild and Scenic River, Blue Ridge Parkway, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. These grants are intended to assist scientists or their students with the logistics of travel to and work within the parks, as well as providing a match to leverage other funding. These funds are not intended for the purchase of equipment or indirect costs. Priority will be given to projects of high research quality that support the Center’s mission to understand and maintain the integrity of the mountain and plateau ecosystems in the Appalachian Highlands Network national parks. We encourage scientific research, public education and outreach leading to enhanced understanding and management of park resources through innovative partnering. All research must adhere to NPS rules and regulations, including permits. Download the Request for Proposals and application forms here.
Appalachian Highlands Science Journal, Issue 2, Now Available
The 16 page collection of articles focuses on scientific research resulting from the efforts of Natural Resource Challenge projects in the Appalachian Highlands Monitoring Network. This includes results from the Inventory and Monitoring team, the Exotic Plant Managment Team, the Southern Appalachian CESU (Cooperative Ecosystems Study Unit) and the Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center.
To view Issue 1 of the journal, click here.
Burroughs Wellcome Fund Grant Renewed that Funds High School Interns
The Burroughs Wellcome Fund in Research Triangle Park has awarded Friends of the Smokies a second three-year, $162,200 grant to support science education programs for middle and high school students on the North Carolina side of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The project will help support the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade on-site science education programs and will fund paid research internships for multiple North Carolina high school students each of the three years. Research interns will work in the park from Twentymile to Cataloochee and also in the southern section of the Blue Ridge Parkway. See the Internships page for examples of some of the projects interns will be assigned to. If you are a high school or undergraduate student, age 16 or older, and are interested in these internships, please contact the Education Coordinator . Interns will have to live within commuting distance of the park and be North Carolina residents. Funding continues through 2008.
GlaxoSmithKline Foundation Grant Funds Teacher Training Workshops
The North Carolina GlaxoSmithKline Foundation has awarded Friends of the Smokies a four-year, $105,000 grant to support teacher enrichment in North Carolina. This project will help to train teachers and pre-service teachers on a variety of different topics from air quality to biodiversity. Many thanks go out to our partners who supported this proposal including Cherokee Central Schools, Haywood County Schools, North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, NC Museum of Natural Science, Livingstone College and Discover Life in America. Funding continues through 2008. See our education page for the current calendar of teacher workshops.
NSF Grant Makes Possible an Inventory of Eumycetozoa Across the National Park Service
Eumycetozoa, a fascinating group of organisms with the unfortunate common name of “slime molds”, include species that are helping with the study of Alzheimer’s disease, are major links in the food web between bacteria and invertebrates, can easily be used in the classroom to help students learn culturing techniques and study cell organization, and may help us to monitor the health of soil communities and other parts of the ecosystem. The AHSLC is coordinating an effort to use the National Park Service system of parks other protected places to conduct a nation-wide inventory of eumycetozoa. We are working in collaboration with Dr. Steve Stephenson at the University of Arkansas and his colleagues, who in 2003 received a five-year Planetary Biodiversity Inventory Grant. As of January 2007, over 3,500 specimen records of 231 species have been identified from 51 NPS sites in 30 states have provided specimens for this study or are committed to, ranging from Alaska to the grasslands of Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve and the deserts of Big Bend and Zion National Parks. Many of the other Research Learning Centers are assisting with this project. A grant from the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Education funded a "train the trainers" workshop in 2005 for educational partners at 14 NPS sites involved in this inventory. These educators can post the records their students detect on the Hands on the Land Web site. For more information about these organisms and their study, visit the University of Arkansas’s web site.
Citizen Science Best Practices Manual Published
We are proud to announce that the "Directors Guide to Best Practices on Citizen Science" was recently published through the Association of Nature Center Administrators. This monograph is an outgrowth of a 2003 Citizen Science Forum held at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont. It is a collective effort from a variety of citizen science program managers highlighting how to plan and impliment a citizen science program. The manual is available for $12 through the website.
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