Park Name: Statue of Liberty National Monument Projected Dates of Detail: Summer 2020 Housing Availability: Housing is not available Stipend: $3000.00 upon completion of program and graduate course requirements Graduate Credit: 3 graduate credit hours through University of Colorado Denver Program Hourly Requirements: Total of 230 hours of effort; 160 hours of major educational project, 45 hours of online coursework, discussion, course readings, 25 hours of NPS operational experiences. Additional Information: Seeking a teacher with experience producing a wide range of curricula, especially someone who has delivered or participated in distance learning or virtual education experiences (e.g., Skype in the Classroom), or is interested in working to figure out what kind of digital/virtual experiences the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island can offer for students around the globe. 2020 Teacher Ranger Teacher Program Guidance – Program Summary The National Park Service (NPS) Teacher Ranger Teacher (TRT) program is an extended professional development program for K-12 educators. The purpose of the program is to provide teachers an opportunity to learn about NPS educational resources and themes while earning continuing education graduate credits through a partnership between the NPS and the University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver). Teachers will spend several weeks in an immersive, on-site experience in a park or NPS program office producing a major project of NPS-based educational materials or programs and complete three graduate credit hours of coursework in Experiential Learning online. The program offers teachers a unique opportunity to enhance their teaching skills in Science, Technology, Math, and Engineering (STEM) or history and civics fields through working directly with NPS scientific data and primary resources. Both the NPS major project and on-site experience as well as the CU Denver online course are required for the participants to successfully complete the program. The emphasis of the program is to engage teachers from schools with underserved student populations, especially schools in rural and urban areas and from tribal schools. The intended impact of the program is to reach out to underserved students by providing a professional development opportunity to their teachers. In order to impact the greatest number of students, the NPS should aim to recruit new teachers into the TRT program each year. Program Goals
Program Administration The TRT program is administered through a Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU) agreement with the University of Colorado Denver. While participating in the program, teachers are considered “student interns” of the university and not employees of NPS nor CU Denver. Stipends provided to teachers are administered through CU Denver upon their successful completion of both the NPS and CU Denver program requirements. CU Denver will also provide participants IRS tax statements. Participants are responsible for any applicable taxes on the stipend as income. Teacher participants are not covered by worker’s compensation under NPS or CU Denver. Expected Level of Effort Successful completion of the TRT program will equal approximately 240 hours of effort. The actual number of days or weeks that the teacher spends at the park or program office can be negotiated at the park or program office level as long as the program requirements can be met by the end of the teacher’s experience. TRTs are expected to spend approximately one to two hours each day in online course work. 240 hours of total effort
Training All TRTs and park or program office coordinators are required to attend an orientation webinar that outlines the program and lesson plan requirements. The training webinar will be presented twice: June 17 and July 15, 2020. Lesson Plan Each TRT will complete at least one lesson plan to use in the classroom or as an on-site activity in the park. Lesson plans will be based on NPS resources including scientific data, primary source documents, or NPS produced materials. Lesson plans produced will be included in the online course requirements. Online Graduate Course All teachers participating in the TRT program are required to register and complete the online course in Experiential Learning with CU Denver. Tuition for all teachers in the program will be covered by the Washington Office of Interpretation, Education, and Volunteers with funding provided by the National Park Foundation. All graduate course readings, discussion forums and assignments must be fulfilled for the TRT to successfully complete the program and receive the full stipend offered at the end of the program. Following completion of the required course, TRTs may choose to continue their studies with CU Denver online and earn up to six additional graduate credit hours at their own expense resulting in a nine-credit hour graduate certificate in place-based education with CU Denver. Background Check If the park will require the TRT to operate government owned vehicles, have unsupervised access to non-public spaces on the park, or have access to Department of the Interior network computers, then the park will be responsible to obtain a background check for the teacher. The park will be expected to cover the cost of the background check. In most cases, it will take too long for the park to get a background check completed in time for the TRT program to be implemented. Education Project TRTs will produce a major education project or program as part of the requirements for both the NPS and CU Denver components of the program. The major project should equal approximately 160 hours of effort by the TRT. A list of suggested TRT projects is listed below.
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Last updated: February 16, 2023