WASHINGTON, D.C. – A team of Great Smoky Mountains National Park employees was recently awarded the 2023 Excellence in Education Award at a National Park Service awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. Many of the agency’s top awards were presented at the 2023 National Service Awards ceremony.
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park team received the award for their development of Seeking Paths in Nature (SPiN), a curriculum project that integrates Cherokee culture and traditional ecological knowledge with park themes. Park staff and educators from Cherokee middle schools co-created the project, which was initiated and funded by the Cherokee Preservation Foundation.
A team of Great Smoky Mountains National Park employees was recently awarded the 2023 Excellence in Education Award at a National Park Service awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. Award winners included, left to right, Malia Crowe Skulski, Natrieifia Miller, Kaylyn Barnes, Callia Johnson, Susan Sachs, Beth Wright and Kahawis. (Photo courtesy of Smokies Life)
SPiN was created to address a desire of the Cherokee community to provide an opportunity for non-tribal students in the region to gain a deeper understanding of the culture of their Cherokee neighbors. The project and resulting classroom units are an active way to acknowledge the park’s location within the traditional homelands of the Aniyuwiya (Cherokee).
The curriculum includes six classroom units that illustrate how the Cherokee have used science throughout their history. Through the units, students learn how to use observation to improve their understanding of interactions in nature and then use art, stories, and other creative endeavors to share their observations. Each unit culminates in ideas for additional lessons to offer student agency to extend their learning and impact in their communities. In one SPiN unit centered around Rivercane, a traditional plant for the Cherokee, students learn about the plant and its restoration through a mapping activity. The unit includes a physics lesson as students learn how Rivercane was used as a Blowgun hunting tool.
Teachers at 42 public schools throughout a portion of the traditional homelands of the Cherokee have received the classroom units after attending a 4-hour training workshop led by park education staff. The activities have been so successful with students that the curriculum supervisor at Cherokee Central Schools has been using them as a model for teachers in elementary and high school on how to embed Cherokee culture into standards-based education.
NPS employees who have helped create and implement the SPiN project include Kaylyn Barnes, Callia Johnson, Kahawis, Erin Lamm, Jessica Metz, Natrieifia Miller, Susan Sachs, Malia Crowe Skulski, Kristina Virgil and Beth Wright. External team members include Jessica Metz, science teacher at New Kituwah Academy; Joel Creasman, principal, Cherokee Middle School; Beth Bramhall, visual information specialist, US Forest Service; Rhonda Wise, Zone Partnership coordinator, US Forest Service; Tinker Jenks, senior program manager, Cherokee Preservation Foundation; and Laura Pinnix and Marie Junaluska, Cherokee Speakers Council members.
The award was dedicated posthumously to Julie Townsend, who served as SPiN Project Coordinator from 2015-19.
The awards event was livestreamed, and the recording is available for viewing.
- National Park Service release
