Hood College Honors Program Students Get Outdoors with Partners in the Parks!

Let me introduce you to a recipe for a good time: Being surrounded by nature, making new friends, and learning about national parks. The name of this recipe is Partners in the Parks, and it’s just one of many educational and fun experiences that the Honors Program gives students access to. 

Coordinated by the National Collegiate Honors Council, Partners in the Parks (PITP) is an outdoor learning program allowing collegiate honors students and faculty to visit national parks across America to enhance their understanding of the importance of national parks to both people and the nation as a whole. This program accomplishes this through seminars given by park personnel and university faculty that details the historical, cultural, biological, and general significance of a given park. 

Some of the locations available to them as of 2022 are: Big Thicket National Preserve, Sitka National Historical Park, Crater Lake National Park, and Acadia National Park. Past ventures, however, have included parks beyond the United States, such as Juan Castro Blanco National Park in Costa Rica. This is all to say that the participants have a diverse range of national parks to explore and memories waiting to be made!

Speaking of participants, Faith Kiser, Kinsey Walker, and Saint-Louis Pierre will be attending this amazing program this year from Hood with partial financial support from the Honors College Honors Program. Kinsey Walker had this to say: “I thought that participating in the program would be an awesome way to get to camp, while also meeting new people and having new experiences. As for what I am most looking forward to, it is the opportunity to meet new people and have new experiences. In general, I feel like this program is definitely a unique learning opportunity, and it is awesome that our honors program is able to help provide the opportunity to students.”

We wish all the participants the best! Fun experiences and beautiful sights await! We can't wait to hear all about it!