A Backcountry Learning Laboratory: Archeology and Internships at Petrified Forest National Park

Summary

This is an abstract from the "NPS Archeology: Engaging the Public through Education and Recreation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Beginning in 2012 Petrified Forest National Park developed an archeological internship program designed to bring young professionals into the park for training, education, and outreach with the public. Since then the park has had 31 student interns. The internship program involves students working directly with interdisciplinary teams of park staff and outside researchers to document the current conditions of archaeological sites. This field training is coupled with independent research to help interns apply their skillsets to a specific research question. Research partners have included Northern Arizona University, the University of Arizona, the Museum of Northern Arizona, the Laboratory for Traditional Technology, the UA Geoarchaeology Laboratory, and the Laboratory for Tree Ring Research. There are numerous direct benefits of this program to the park. Interns allow the park to increase the capacity of our limited cultural resources staff allowing us to work more with the general public. Cultural resource staff and interns can then provide more education and interpretive opportunities for the public. The PEFO internship program has been very successful in promoting the careers of these interns. The bulk of these interns have gone on to further graduate work, careers in Federal land management, or jobs in cultural resource management.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• NPS Archeology: Engaging the Public through Education and Recreation

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25648