This month, we are highlighting our partnership with the National Park Service.  We cherish this partnership as they are the reason that we can bring so many bright minds into our Nation's great parks.  We sat down with Chad, National Park Service Night Skies Team Leader, to learn more about his passion behind the partnership.

1. What prompted you to want to work with Global Explorers?

Well it was actually Karen Trevino, heading the Natural Sounds Program. This was at a point when the Night Skies Program and the Natural Sounds Program were sister programs but not under the same roof and she said, “You’ve got to meet David Shurna and learn about Global Explorers and all that they do with youth.”  It probably took all of two minutes of David talking about the experience that he’s bringing to young kids for me to say “Oh, there’s a place for this in the Night Skies Program.”

I believe that quality is more important than quantity. We’d rather have a small number of visitors have a life-changing experience than all of the visitors that can be jammed in a park not have a meaningful experience. Of course, we do our best to ensure that everyone has a meaningful experience that comes. But that’s important – some people only go to National Parks once or twice in their life. That’s all they can afford in terms of time off or a trip and they look forward it to and it’s something that they’ll value even more so than a trip to Disney.

I think that Global Explorers has that same ethic – of ‘let’s see what we can do to make a real, transformative experience for as many kids as we can’ – but it’s really a small number. And those youth, in turn, can teach the others. 

2. What inspires you about the mission of Global Explorers?

Certainly it is having a meaningful, life-changing experience. I think that Global Explorers has a very strong sense of ‘nature and the world belonging to everyone.’ You do the best that you can to ensure that gifted and talented kids, low-income kids, kids with differing backgrounds and abilities, and kids from far away can have these kinds of experiences and that’s really inspirational.

Global Explorers makes me feel more optimistic about the National Park Service in the future – that National Parks can endure if we have programs like Global Explorers that are connecting to kids to nature – inside or outside of National Parks. Just expanding their worldview is so important.