In today’s world of recorded lectures and note taking, engaging students face-to-face or remotely becomes problematic. The Bessie B. Moore Center for Economic Education in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas has 40+ years’ experience making learning relevant and engaging, and Covid-19 has challenged us to up our game! This summer, in order to meet the two-hour Arkansas history professional development requirement, I worked with four furloughed former students to rise to the challenge of creating a virtual Arkansas State Parks experience! Four students, Blake Carter, Elizabeth Fletcher, Joey Snow, and Anastasia Young stepped up and agreed to explore and create. We wanted to help teachers to use the Arkansas State Parks to teach Arkansas history in a fun and engaging way. Since the originally scheduled park visits were canceled, we had a blank slate. Anything that taught the frameworks and made learning engaging became a possibility. I was astounded by the outcome! We developed a variety of new activities with timelines, Google Earth, videos, brochures, presentations, and more! I implore you to use at lease one of these resources to help your students to develop a pride in the history, culture and resources of our state.

Parks and Tourism in the Natural State: An Economic Driver

This website provides organized resources and activities that are designed to be ready-to-use for Arkansas teachers. A few of the resource options are summarized below:

Digital timeline: Students use an online timeline created in TikiToki to learn the history of Arkansas State Parks. A Tech How-To video was created to teach your students how to create their own timelines.

Google Earth: Google Earth lets students explore the geographic dimensions of each featured park.

Video Series: This video describing the origins of Arkansas State Parks and the funding issues over time showed the value of the A75 Conservation Sales Tax passed in 1996 funding the maintenance and upkeep of the Arkansas State Parks. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, Keep Arkansas Beautiful, and the Department of Arkansas Heritage – all treasures to the state – were included in the funding.

One-Pager Activities: In this activity, students share their learning by developing one page written and visual summaries of the Arkansas parks they’ve learned about. Tech How-To videos teach students to create brochures summarizing their park research.

Teacher Materials

To initiate the project, a presentation provides information about the diverse natural resources found in each of the 52 Arkansas State Parks. These parks cover almost 55,000 acres; access 27 lakes and 18 rivers; through 435 trails for people, bikes, or animals. Students learn about the capital resources or facilities that help 8 million visitors access the parks including the activities and education embedded within them. These facilities include the parks, cabins, lodges, marinas, gift shops, museums, national historic landmarks, and more. Students learn about the 600 full-time and 800 seasonal workers or human capital who provide the various services needed to run the parks and their programs. The educators welcomed the opportunity to introduce students to an additional career path for those interested in history, nature or culture. In 2018 the 8 million visitors to the Arkansas State Parks resulted in $7.37 billion in expenditures; $408 million in state taxes; $161 million in local taxes; resulting in 1 billion dollars of economic impact.

The goals of the Arkansas State Parks include:

1. providing quality recreational and educational opportunities;

2. preserving natural, historical and cultural resources;

3. enhancing the economy;

4. leading in resource conservation; and

5. honoring tradition and seeking innovation.

Assessing Learning

Once students understand the mission and goals of the Parks, a project is included where students are challenged to create a park to attract Generation Z. Students are allotted a limited budget, geographic features and natural resources. Students design park amenities deciding what is provided for free or to generate income. As you might imagine, the park proposals always included technology that interfaced with the natural world to create new ways for young and mature to learn about Arkansas. Student created parks included new camping facilities that hang, float, rest in the trees, or extend on bluff tops. Floating platforms in lakes provide musical or theatrical entertainment. Selfie station stops equipped with charging stations were a standard. Apps were designed to help people learn about the natural world by featuring bird calls or reptile identification. This project allows your creative students to shine as they develop a pride in our Natural State! And it encourages them and their families to explore Arkansas.

Wrapping Up

While my college students were researching, many great educational resources were found. A lengthy list of resources is provided in the Quick Links section of the web portal so teachers can create and assign a variety of projects to students. These include links to the Arkansas Humanities Council and their Arkansas State Parks Grant for teachers; Arkansas Tourism videos and Channels; Natural State Entrepreneurs curriculum; Arkansas Parks Digital Discovery; and even Arkansas Parks digital Zoom backgrounds! Each park interpreter at the six parks virtually visited developed new videos or activities to share with the teachers and students. Examples include videos of a historic blacksmith’s job at Historic Washington State Park; forest ecosystems and a tree leaf maze at Hobbs State Park and Conservation Area; Travel Through Time on boats at the Lake Dardanelle State Park; Native American stories at Toltec Mounds State Park; videos on the Louisiana Purchase and Mississippi River State Park; and an interpretive film from Jacksonport State Park. These are included on the website for future use by teachers.

I challenge you to explore the site and select one activity to help your students learn about and take pride in our state and I invite you to share with me any ways you use the resources.

Dr. Rita Littrell, director, Bessie B. Moore Center for Economic Education, rlittrell@walton.uark.edu

More resources and information can be located on the Bessie B. Moore Center for Economic Education Blog: https://wordpressua.uark.edu/startupculture/

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Director - Bessie B. Moore Center for Economic Education

Dr. Rita Littrell, a native northwest Arkansan, spent 12 years serving as a teacher, educator of the gifted, and school administrator in Springdale School District where she was recognized 10 times for her outstanding teaching including first place in the nation for exemplary economic education curricula. After completing PhD studies at the University of Kansas and serving as center director at University of Missouri-Kansas City, Rita returned to the University of Arkansas to serve as director of the Bessie B. Moore Center for Economic Education in the Sam M. Walton College of Business. Recent curriculum development topics include economic decisions for college/career success and youth entrepreneurship. Check out her blog or the portal for teaching Arkansas history using Arkansas State Parks developed with her students. The Moore Center specializes in teacher professional development with programs ranging from after-school startup visits to conferences on entrepreneurship education. In her spare time Rita founded the Butterfly Nanny program at the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks, gardens, cooks and collects international and unique friends! To learn more about Arkansas entrepreneurs and curricula, you can find Dr. Littrell’s blog here: https://wordpressua.uark.edu/startupculture/

Director - Bessie B. Moore Center for Economic Education