COS 167-6 - Parks Program: developing an interdisciplinary, student-centered program

Background/Question/Methods

The future of ecological education will involve the creation and incorporation of interdisciplinary, community-engagement programming into the curricula. Cross-disciplinary work helps scientific information more successfully reach general audiences. Invested faculty members at the County College of Morris (CCM), a community college located in Morris County, NJ, developed Parks Program to provide a platform that is interdisciplinary in nature and goes beyond our classroom, into the community to determine how impactful an interdisciplinary and community-minded education would be.





Parks Program is comprised of faculty, students, and the community that is offered at CCM. Parks Program uses the National Park System, the theme of conservation, and the intersectionality of the sciences, humanities, and related fields to engage individuals in a shared learning experience that goes beyond the classroom. Disciplines part of Parks Program are ecology, environmental science, history, art history, and journalism. Parks Program offers on-campus, off-campus, and virtual programming to engage participants in interdisciplinary, community-engaged programming. To assess the success of Parks Program a variety of methods were used including worksheets, surveys, and assessment reports.

Results/Conclusions

Over 65% of students stated that the interdisciplinary nature of Parks Program helped them understand real-world issues through a variety of academic disciplines. Over 75% of students had reported increased collaboration and learning opportunities. Seventy-five percent of students found value in human connections to public lands. Qualitative highlights included the following student statements. “I really enjoyed how the projects and questions really wrapped all different subjects together. Even though I was taking an ecology course, I felt like I got to experience and view things from a different educational perspective.” “It was a very unique learning experience overall that I felt only enriched the course rather than taking away from it.”





Our results show that interdisciplinary learning and community engagement increases student participation, success, and delivery of course learning outcomes. Students were provided with opportunities of collaboration and community involvement that had a positive effect on their learning experience. However, there is a need to address additional questions. Such questions as, how does this teaching style improve student competency of course material? In May 2022, Parks Program will bring seven students and three professors to Yellowstone National Park. We are excited to see how this experience affects our students.