Describes comprehensively conservation education and interpretation in Australia. Includes discussions of history, range of programs, strengths and weaknesses of types of activities, cost considerations and some strategies to cope with budgetary constraints, and an analysis of the effectiveness of guided programs in Australia in the absence of…

Describes the efforts of Bernadette Cozart and the Greening of Harlem, a community-based project working to reclaim abandoned land. Outlines efforts to educate children, create safe play areas, and provide participants with skills that can lead to jobs. (LZ)

Presents a firsthand account of the author's experiences with taking the actions necessary to achieve institutional accreditation. After listing the benefits of working through the process, the article explains the steps used to achieve accreditation. Accredited baccalaureate programs in recreation, park resources, and leisure services are listed.…

Describes two conservation education programs that target local primary schools and use national parks in Malaysian Borneo (Kinabalu Park) and central Brazil (Morro do Diabo Park). Both were designed using a comprehensive systems evaluation model and both resulted in cognitive and affective gains for students. (LB)

Increasing ethnic/racial diversity challenges parks and recreation (PR) planners. Research indicates enough group differences in recreational participation and preferences to suggest that racial/ethnic background is an important consideration in PR planning. Facilitated focus group discussions with community members can help planners understand…

Safe playgrounds are an essential mission for public park, recreation, education, and child care agencies. The article describes how to create safety programs and offers lists of safety program components, safety inspection steps, and preventive maintenance schedules. It also presents playground safety checklists and notes three available…

Discusses drug testing for park law enforcement officers, presenting drug screening guidelines for park managers. The article examines how to establish programs, whether to screen, legal aspects, and implications of the Handicap Act (which makes it difficult to dismiss employees claiming the handicap of substance abuse without providing…

Despite strong support for the concept of partnership, 93% of local parks and recreation directors surveyed in northeastern Ohio did not have current links with colleges and universities. Systemic forces such as institutional inertia, lack of partnership-building information, and insufficient or unclear motivational factors may play pivotal roles…

Discusses the Youth Activity and Recreational Development (YARD) Center project, one school's efforts to return their school grounds to a more natural state in order to support integrated learning in a natural area, provide an environmental education workstation and writing laboratory, and have an aesthetically pleasing area for students and…

Presents a list of accredited Canadian and U.S. programs that offer professional preparation in the fields of parks, recreation, and leisure, explaining why accreditation is important, what the standards are, what the options are, how programs become accredited, who does the accrediting, and what is new in accreditation. (SM)

Digital videophotography, computer image analysis and physical measurements have been used to monitor sedimentation rates, coral cover, genera richness, rugosity, and estimated recruitment dates of massive corals at three different sites in the Wakatobi Marine National Park, Indonesia, and on the reefs around Discovery Bay, Jamaica.…

The Hoonton PARKnership is a cooperative learning program that pairs a public elementary school and a state park to involve students of all abilities in exciting, interactive outdoor learning adventures. In the program, students learn about their local environment--both in the classroom and through field trips to the park--and complete projects to…

An activity called "Project Physics, a Classroom Without Walls" was started during the spring of 2003 at the amusement park in Mirabilandia (Italy). Many thousands of students from Italian middle and high schools are today participating in the initiative. Under the guidance of trained tutors, they perform physics experiments on some of…

This article describes the 2004 summer field program, the Kashaya Pomo Interpretive Trail Project (KPITP), which is an extension of the Fort Ross Archaeological Project (FRAP). Both are collaborative projects involving UC Berkeley, the California Department of Parks and Recreation, and the Kashaya Pomo tribe. The project attempts to integrate the…

This activity guide, developed to provide hands-on environmental education activities geared to Hammocks Beach State Park in North Carolina, is targeted for grades 6, 7, and 8 and meets the curriculum objectives of the standard course of study established by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Three types of activities are…