Stories Sustain Us #48 – The National Park Classroom: Why Learning Outdoors Matters

Summary
In episode 48 of Stories Sustain Us, James Fester shares how his early love for the outdoors and a deep respect for education shaped his journey as a teacher, author, and advocate for experiential learning. From leading middle school students on trips to Washington D.C. to writing The National Park Classroom, James explores how public lands, community partnerships, and project-based learning can transform education.

Host Steven Schauer and James dive into the power of inquiry-based teaching, the value of local history, and the role organizations like National Geographic, UNESCO, and PBLWorks play in supporting innovative educators. They discuss how park rangers, national parks, and informal education can inspire curiosity, civic engagement, and a lasting connection to the natural world.

This episode is a call to action—for teachers, parents, and policymakers—to reimagine learning, support conservation, and build a more hopeful future through collaboration and curiosity.

About the Guest
During more than two decades in education, James Fester M.Ed has worked in public, private, and online schools as a classroom teacher, instructional coach, technology director, and curriculum specialist.

In addition to serving as a member of PBLWorks’ National Faculty where he helps develop schools and teachers across the globe, James is Google Certified Innovator and a widely published author. He contributes regularly to a wide range of blogs and online publications such as Edutopia, ISTE, and National Geographic. He has also written two books, the latest of which is titled The National Park Classroom and published globally by ISTE in 2024. 

Show Notes
National Park Classroom: https://www.nationalparkclassroom.com/book

Takeaways
•James was raised by public school teachers, influencing his career path.
•He had a strong connection to the outdoors from a young age.
•James believes in the importance of outdoor education for student engagement.
•James emphasizes the need for diverse teaching methodologies.
•Teaching methods can be enhanced by informal education principles.
•Volunteering can provide valuable experiences for educators.
•Engaging students with local history increases their interest.
•Park rangers can offer unique educational perspectives.
•Inquiry-based learning is essential in modern education.
•Teachers can leverage public land resources for classroom use.
•Collaboration between teachers and park rangers can enhance learning.
•The National Park Classroom book provides practical teaching strategies.
•Project-based learning makes education more relevant and engaging.
•Engaging with national parks can inspire conservation efforts.
•Educators should utilize available resources to enhance teaching.
•Building connections with experts enriches the learning experience.
•Awareness of national parks is crucial for future conservationists.
•Hope for the future lies in communication

🎙️ Stories Sustain Us is more than a podcast—it's a powerful platform that shares inspiring stories from people working to make the world a better place. Through honest, heartfelt conversations, host Steven Schauer explores the connections between people, planet, and purpose. From climate change and environmental justice to cultural preservation and human resilience, each episode aims to ignite meaningful action toward a more sustainable future.

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Transcript

Steven 
What if the solution to student disengagement isn't in the classroom, but just outside of it? Across the country, educators are discovering that outdoor learning, hands-on projects, and real-world connections aren't just nice add-ons. They're essential. And no one understands that better than today's guest, who believes that the key to transforming education might lie in our national parks, our local history, and the untapped power of collaboration. Hey, everybody.

I'm Steven Schauer, welcome to Stories Sustain Us, the show where personal journeys and bold ideas meet to spark change and sustainability in our communities. In today's episode, we meet James Fester, a lifelong educator, curriculum innovator, and advocate for outdoor and project-based learning. From early childhood trips to national parks, to leading global teacher training for UNESCO.

James has re-imagined what learning can look like when we step outside the four walls of a traditional classroom. We talk about the power of inquiry, why collaboration with park rangers and community experts matters, and how embracing local history can help students connect more deeply with their world. James shares his experiences bringing students to Washington, D.C., partnering with the National Park Service, and writing the National Park Classroom.

a book that's quickly becoming a must read for forward thinking educators. Whether you're a teacher, a parent, or simply someone who cares about the future of education and sustainability, this conversation will leave you hopeful and energized. James Fester brings more than two decades of experience across public, private, and online schools. His career includes roles as a classroom teacher, instructional coach, technology director, and curriculum specialist.

He's a member of the National Faculty at PBL Works, where he helps educators worldwide embrace project-based learning. James is also a Google Certified Innovator, National Geographic Grantee, and a published author whose latest book, The National Park Classroom, was released globally by ISTE in 2024. His impact stretches beyond school systems. James is a facilitator for UNESCO,

a frequent contributor to platforms like Edutopia and ISTE, and a public lands professional who works at every level of park education. From his work with the Teacher Ranger Teacher Program to helping national and state parks reimagine how they engage learners, James is bridging the gap between classrooms and the natural world. So how can teachers spark curiosity and civic responsibility using the world just beyond their school doors?

Let's find out with James Fester here on Stories Sustain Us, where we are inspiring action through the power of storytelling.

Steven 
James, how you doing? Welcome to Stories  Sustain Us. How you doing today?

James Fester 
I'm doing great, Steven. Thanks so much for having me.

Steven 
Yeah, well, thank you for reaching out. I mentioned in the introduction that you had actually contacted me and I looked into your website and everything and I was like, I got to talk to this guy. So I'm looking forward to this conversation. I generally start off asking everybody where are they from? So I'm over here in Seattle and it's actually a beautiful day in Seattle for a change. Got some sun this weekend. So where are you and what's it like where you are?

James Fester 
That's great.

Yeah, so I am currently living in St. Paul, Minnesota. ⁓ I do not have the very fun and interesting accent because I'm actually originally from the Pacific Coast myself. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and lived in California most of my life until one day I fell madly in love with a girl from Minneapolis. And now here I am living in St. Paul where the air hurts your face six months out of the year. But it's been actually a really fantastic move and

⁓ Although I do miss, obviously, ⁓ the things that I kind of took for granted when I lived in California, like access to the mountains and the ocean and all that. There's a lot of great stuff here too, so it was actually a really positive move and I love where I live, which is great.

Steven 
Yeah, yeah.

Right on

one and who you're living with, no doubt as well. Absolutely. ⁓ Well, I'm looking forward to jumping into your story. There's a lot I want to hear about your connection to the United Nations and National Geographic and obviously your book, The National Park Classroom, but let's jump in to your life. just mentioned San Francisco and the West Coast is where you grew up. Tell me a little bit about your childhood and ⁓ what life was like for you growing up.

James Fester 
Very true, yes, yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So that's, I think the two things that are really important or the two things that come to mind when I talk about my childhood are ⁓ one that I was raised by two public school teachers and so it was pretty obvious very early on what I was going to be doing with my life. It was going to be involved in education and because I lived in such close proximity to two really fantastic public school teachers that was kind of what I thought I was going to do.

that my definition of what education was or what it meant to be an educator was you get your credential, you get in a classroom, and then you spend your life doing that and then eventually retire and that's, and there you go, boom, that's Yahtzee. And that's kind of what I thought. And it was, it was the plan ever since I was, I think in the sixth grade. I remember actually very clearly in our, during my sixth grade year, we had our first career day.

Steven 
Yeah.

James Fester 
and I looked all through the career day catalog and the one job that was not available to go and listen to was teacher and I was pretty irate about that and said like, why would I waste my time going and seeing all of these other things when I know what I want to do? And I believe I was sent home by the principal. ⁓ So I felt very strongly about what I was going to be doing and to this day I joke that when people ask me what I do, I jokingly say I inherited the family business. Yeah.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah. What grades did

your parents teach you, if don't mind me asking? Because, yeah.

James Fester 
No, of course. ⁓

My father was a high school teacher. He taught chemistry and life sciences ⁓ pretty much all throughout his career at high school level. And my mother, it was actually kind of an interesting trajectory. She started out actually teaching at the collegiate level. She was in the physical education ⁓ discipline and she taught at the collegiate level in the state college system. And then when my brother and I came along, she kind of took a break for a little bit, but then eventually went back and got really interested in

Steven 
⁓

Okay.

James Fester 
in special education and ⁓ did that for the last part of her career. So she taught, arguably you could say, K16. And I ⁓ ended up going into middle school. I had absolutely no intention of doing middle school. It was the worst time of my life in many ways, but I had a couple of teachers who were very, very important in making sure that I stayed on track and stayed successful.

Steven 
well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

James Fester 
And so I think that may have stuck with me. And so when I essentially went out, started to look for jobs, ⁓ I was very lucky to find, to serendipitously find a position at a school district and it was a middle school position. And so I took it and I could not imagine teaching any other age. know some people, yeah, I think it's really, I think it's really fortunate that there are people like me in the world ⁓ that are like really passionate about teaching middle school. ⁓

Steven 
Wow, I always hear that's like a tough age to teach, yeah.

Yes, yes.

James Fester 
But it's funny because I feel the same way about my wife as a preschool teacher and I feel the same way about teaching preschool. I'm like, I don't even know where you would begin with that. Like, what's the curriculum? I know. Yeah, and she thinks I'm kind of out of my mind thinking that teenagers are fun and I think she's crazy chasing toddlers around. So it works very well, I think. It's a good balance. But yeah, that's what I ended up doing.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah.

Me too, all of it actually.

Great.

Yeah, well, we definitely need people like you and your wife in the world because, I love teachers and the important role that they play, but, yeah, imagining myself in a room full of toddlers or a room full of 12-year-olds all day would be something I imagine I could pull off, but something that in the back of my mind I'd be going, this is probably not what I want to be doing. yeah.

James Fester 
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

This may not be my calling. ⁓

Yeah, so that's the one thing to know about my childhood is it just revolved around education. Like, you know, the academic year was the calendar year and that was just the way that we planned everything. And the other thing that's really important for people to know is the strong connection I always have had to the outdoors. ⁓

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah.

James Fester 
when I was growing up, you know, I had two parents that were public school teachers, so we didn't have oodles and oodles of money to spend on exotic vacations, places, and things like that. So we would do a lot of camping and a lot of car camping. And ⁓ I actually didn't know until I was very young or until I was a little bit older, I didn't know that when you went on vacation, that didn't actually just mean camping, because that's all we did. I didn't...

Steven 
Sure.

Yeah, Mike, me too.

Yeah.

James Fester 
I

didn't know that other people did other things and I remember being really confused when I had a friend one year who said like, ⁓ what'd do for vacation? I went on a cruise and I sat there thinking like, how the heck do you pitch a boat on a tent? That doesn't make any sense. And then it was only then that I realized that there are a lot of other things that you can do. But again, I never felt like I was missing out on anything. I never felt like it was something that I was like, we never did these other kinds of things because for me, that was my ultimate. There was nothing that I would rather do than.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

James Fester 
go stay out in the woods and get to explore places. And we went to national parks a lot, specifically Yosemite. That was, I jokingly kind of referred to that as my backyard growing up because we were there like clockwork almost every spring before like the park really opened and before like all of the, you know, there's no off seasons anymore in parks like that. But back in the day there was, and that was the off season. And we would have the place almost to ourselves. Sometimes things were so closed because of snow, but.

Steven 
yeah.

Nice.

Yeah, that's too crowded. Sure. Yep. Yep.

James Fester 
I just remember it being an incredibly informative part of my life and something that I always wanted to make sure remained that way, which is kind of what brought me to all of the work that I've done recently, which is really kind of exploring more about what that means and what it means to ensure that these places ⁓ are sustained and continue to be valued. ⁓ Because without people like you and me and the folks that are listening, they would not exist and they will not exist. And so it's really important to make sure people understand what they are. Exactly.

Steven 
Yeah, yeah, they're worth fighting for. Absolutely.

So you're adamant in sixth grade about your future and ⁓ yeah, moving on into the high school years that obviously didn't change direction ⁓ and outdoors. have a similar, my family didn't come from a great deal of means either, comfortable middle class kind of family, but.

We did a lot of camping and outdoor activities like you did. ⁓ So what was high school like as you were preparing to move on to this career of education where you kind of already that focused on it in high school and you kind of knew where you were going to go to college and onward or did it kind of just unfold for you as life often does?

James Fester 
Mm-hmm.

⁓ I was still pretty sure about what I was gonna do. That hadn't changed. The exact pathway to get there was the thing that I didn't quite know. I didn't have any idea where I was gonna go to school. ⁓ I mean, the nice thing about going into education, at least in a state like California, is that you basically could choose almost every...

college that I could have chosen would have some sort of education program. mean, the state college system in California was originally set up as a network of teachers colleges. So like that's still very much a part of the DNA. And so I knew I was like, I basically got to pick a city. ⁓ one of the things that I did that was really smart ⁓ was that I didn't rush it and that I spent two years going to a junior college, which I know not everybody would probably say that that's like.

something that is their definition of success, but for me it really was, and there was a couple of reasons for that. Number one, the things that I did for the first two years would have been the same things that I did at a four-year institution for the same two years. They just cost absolutely next to nothing. I I still cannot believe that like, I look at the price of how college, the price of college has risen and I tell people that, oh yeah, when I first started going to school, I was paying $11 a unit.

Steven 
A lot less, yeah.

Hahaha

James Fester 
And they all transferred and it was, you know, I would pay in cash or like in the change that I had in my car sometimes if I wanted to take an extra unit or a lab course or something. ⁓ But what was especially important about that junior college was that because the, because the, there wasn't the same, I don't want to say obsession, but because there wasn't the same emphasis on people declaring a major and kind of sticking with it, you know, and when you're doing your,

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah.

James Fester 
your first two years that there's not always a ton of pressure, but in some places they're very much like, what's your major gonna be and why would you you need to get on that track? But at a JC because there isn't that same kind of, ⁓ the focus is much more on transitioning and preparing you well for the next chapter, which is transitioning to a four-year university. ⁓ I was able to do all sorts of things that I never would have gotten to do, I think at a ⁓ state or a university. Like I got to go and...

Steven 
Yeah, we gotta get you on this track and yep.

James Fester 
run the astronomy lab, got to be, I got to manage technical theater productions, I got to do, you know, I got to help put on school events, I got to do all of these things that I never would have been able to do otherwise. Number one, because I was living at home and I didn't have to support myself, but number two, they're just like really open to that. And I also had, without a doubt, some of the best teachers I've ever had in my life. I'm gonna, I don't wanna, I know that this is not,

Steven
Sure.

James Fester 
not at all the truth or is not a, this is a big and broad generalization, but in sometimes when you go to those higher ed universities, the emphasis isn't always on for the individual professors. It's not necessarily on teaching or instruction as much as it's on other things like research and things like that. public publisher parish can be, yeah, and I get that. I understand that, ⁓ that, you know, it's not always the case because I had some fantastic teachers later on in my career as well, but.

Steven 
Sure. Yeah, publication, know, getting them on that tenure track. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Of

James Fester 
The folks that were at the JC, a lot of them were much, much more interested in the student experience and the student interaction and what was going on in the classroom. And so I got some really fantastic ⁓ folks that I was then able to emulate later on and kind of do that. ⁓ And that was really great. And it set me up well. The nice thing about, and I think this is still the case, but one of the really nice things about starting at a JC and then going into the state or university system is that ⁓

you sit down with the counselors and the staff, the counseling staff at the school was exceptional. And you sit down and you say, here's what I wanna do and here's where I think I wanna go. And they basically just say, this is what you have to do over the next two years and these are the scores that you need to get. And then you're basically guaranteed to go in and everything will transfer. ⁓ That's pretty amazing. And it took a lot of the edge off me, because I basically just had to hit those marks and had a little bit of wiggle room too, which was nice. ⁓

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

James Fester
but I did what I had to do. I got out and then I ended up down in Southern California because I just decided I wanted to live in a different part of the state and ⁓ ended up at Cal State Long Beach. ⁓ Mostly because again, like I didn't really, you know, I had a lot of choice and I didn't really feel pressured to choose one way or the other. And I remembered they had a really fun blue pyramid as their gym and that looked cool. So I went there. Not exactly, not exclusively, but like.

Steven 
Okay.

Those are the choices we make.

James Fester 
I would be lying if I didn't say that one stuck out in my head because I did think that that was kind of cool and interesting and it made me want to investigate the school more. Yeah. Yeah, if you have the, I believe it was at the time the third largest pyramid in North America ⁓ or yeah, maybe, or maybe the third largest pyramid in the United States. I think that's probably more accurate. ⁓ Like, you know, why not? Let's check it out.

Steven 
had some influence.

Yeah, the rest of the place has got to be kind of interesting if they got this cool thing going on there. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, it worked out.

James Fester 
It did work out very well and it was a good choice. think it was really a good choice to just live in a different part of the state and get down into ⁓ and to kind of experience the Southern California of it all just to ⁓ the access to all sorts of different things down there. that actually is start, that is actually also where my definition of what an educator is really started to broaden because I started to get involved with. ⁓

Steven 
Sure.

James Fester 
what shall we say, informal educational institutions. I started volunteering at historic sites and the county parks and really got involved in ⁓ investigating and learning more about the state park system. And that's really where I started to kind of think like, you know what, there is more than being an educator doesn't just mean sitting in a classroom. And there's a heck of a lot of interesting and remarkable things that folks that are educators on our public lands or educators at places like zoos and aquariums do.

Steven 
Yeah.

classroom, right? right.

James Fester 
in service of their educational imperative that are worth knowing about and I do think really helped me when I eventually transitioned into the classroom. I took a lot of that with me and it gave me, I think in a lot of ways, a little bit of a leg up when I was ⁓ dealing with some of the challenges that come with teaching in a classroom.

Steven 
Yeah, right on.

Yeah, keeping kids' attention at that age is definitely requires, ⁓ I'm sure, a wide array of skills and taking those outdoor experiences and how to keep people engaged in an outdoor space where their eyes can wander even further than just the four walls of a classroom. ⁓ Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. So did you focus on a particular, mean, obviously going into middle school, you weren't necessarily ⁓

James Fester 
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

For sure.

Steven 
Well, I guess I don't know. I'm gonna ask the question, like, what was your educational focus? Did you end up in social studies or math or, you know, chemistry like your father? Where did you end up going?

James Fester 
yeah!

Mm-hmm.

No, I ended up going into the into social studies and history and that was my area of interest. I was always kind of interested in that and then as I got older, it turned out to be one of the subjects that I was always really consistently good at too and so that I kind of took that as like, okay, that's a sign that maybe this is the direction I go. But I was very lucky that what I taught was also my area. It wasn't my passion, which isn't always the case for educators.

Steven 
Yeah.

Okay.

James Fester 
But for me, it definitely was. It was what I really enjoyed. I really liked it. I could talk about history all day long and really kind of got into that. think a lot of people later on in life rediscover history and rediscover...

you know, those kinds of things as a hobby and kind of come back to it. ⁓ And so, but I kind of never left. It's just kind of what I did, you know, when I was on, when we would go on vacations, we would always end up it.

Steven 
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James Fester 
historic places and like on this site on this day near this rock this happened and of course I wanted to read all of them and take pictures of all of the plaques yeah it's it's still it's something that is a source a never-ending source of eye rolls I think today for my wife and we're driving on a car trip I'm like wait there's a there's a marker up here pull over and she's like again like are we really gonna do this and I'm like yeah we are pull over and luckily she entertains those kinds of things yeah that's like I gotta know I gotta know what happened and like

Steven 
Yeah, just absorbing all of that. Yeah.

Yeah.

I fight that urge often.

James Fester 
Yeah, so, yeah.

Steven 
Wonderful. going in then into the classroom, did you leave right from college and go right into the classroom or was there was there other things in between?

James Fester 
No, pretty much that was my goal was to just go as fast as I could to get my classroom and do it because that's really where I thought I was going to be spending my time and I was really like really wanted to ⁓ get that get it done as soon as possible. And so ⁓ so I did I went right in. I got a job at a school district in northern California in a tiny little town called Larkspur, which is just basically I think it's a 30 minute drive north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Steven 
straight into it. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

James Fester 
once you leave San Francisco and

⁓ really lucked out. Had a fantastic administrator who for whatever reason decided that I was the one that he wanted to hire despite being completely unqualified and having no experience and all of the other people that were applying for the job coming in with resumes that were a yard long. ⁓ It was really, it was a very important moment in my life that I got chosen, which

Steven 
Yeah.

James Fester 
Yeah, like I got that chance that he gave me that chance and I think, yeah, and I think I did and I really, really thrive there. It was really great. I really enjoyed it. I got to do all of the history stuff that I had been ready like learning about my entire life. got to, I got opportunities to do things like take our kiddos, our students on their eighth grade trip to Washington DC every year and I got to do that. So I got opportunities to really see, ⁓ you know, to do.

Steven 
Got that break you needed, yeah.

⁓ nice.

James Fester 
which like on paper, you look, like I look back at what I did and it was, it's still one of my, it was one of my favorite parts of the year, but like taking 87 teenagers across the country for a week and having to like monitor them and make sure they don't do anything crazy, ⁓ getting them through airport security and making sure they didn't get lost. I mean, it just like, it really does sound to some people like nightmare fuel.

Steven 
You

James Fester 
But for me, it was fantastic. Yeah, it was, it definitely was. But it was also great too, because I think, and this is something that I would say about just education in general, is that ⁓ getting students outside of a classroom and giving them opportunities to learn or to do, to learn or do the work of learning outside of a classroom is really key. And that's something that this taught me because the students who gave me,

Steven 
It sounds like an adventure. Yeah, it's an adventure.

James Fester 
The hardest time were the biggest disruptions, the ones that I butted head with the most were always, like without exception, the best travelers and the best behaved and most capable ones when I got them out of the classroom. It never failed. And like I would come back and I would tell my fellow teachers, I'd be like, you know, such and such, he was really awesome. He stepped up, he was always on time. He was helping people with their bags.

Steven 
Yeah.

James Fester 
you you get him out of an environment like a classroom environment, a traditional classroom environment, which is not setting him up for success and you get him somewhere else. And it was great too, because it also helped me really shift my relationship and change my mind about them too. If I had not done that, if that student had not gone on that trip with me, I would have just always seen them as the troublemaker, the pain in the rear, the one that was always trying. Exactly. And that just, and so I think it was really important, not just from a relationship standpoint,

Steven 
Yeah, they just have a different mindset, right?

Sure ⁓

Yeah, yeah, the difficult student, right, right.

That's wonderful.

James Fester 
but giving them an opportunity to learn in a way that works better for them. Because for some people, ⁓ non-formal learning or free choice learning or whatever you wanna call it, the stuff that is characteristic of the methodology used in places like national parks and museums and things like that, ⁓ that's the way that they learn, that's the natural form of learning and it's better. And they just, can't handle the rigidity and the structure of like lecture, lecture, lecture, test, lecture, lecture, lecture, test. It's just...

Steven 
Yeah.

James Fester 
It's tough and we have to recognize, and I wish that I had a better answer for it, but we need to recognize that some students are just not gonna be successful learning like that, and we need to provide other opportunities to make sure that we are using pedagogies and methodologies that work for them. And sometimes that means getting them out of the classroom.

Steven 
Other one, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. taking kids to DC, I'm imagining here then that part of your curriculum as a middle school teacher in California was US history as well as I'm assuming California history is a little bit of blend of both.

James Fester 
⁓ Not as much the California history, although I do love that, which is really weird for a guy who... It's a really weird thing for somebody who now lives in Minnesota to say that I love California history, but I do. It's just, it's still fantastic and it's, you know, there'll always be a part of me that never really leaves that state. Like, it's just, you know, I have family there, I go back with my kids now and we visit a couple times a year and I take them and get to do all these things with them. I want them to experience that part of... ⁓

Steven 
Yeah, sure.

James Fester 
you know, I want them to be able to explore the California part, even though they were born and raised in Minnesota, and I don't want them to lose that connection. But ⁓ US history was definitely the focus. I taught mostly eighth grade, and in that you kind of start at about the end of the American Revolution and go up until ⁓ the beginning of World War I. That's what you're supposed to do. Nobody ever makes it that far because there's just too much to do and too much to go through. But ⁓ that's more or less the focus. And so it was like kind of the perfect

Steven 
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it's too much, yeah. Sure.

James Fester 
the perfect time to really take them to our nation's capital where they can basically see where it all happened and everything in the museums because they're literally immersed in it. And some kids, they totally got turned on by that, like having to spend weeks and weeks learning about the Constitution and then you actually get to go and sit in on a session of the legislative branch and watch how the sausage gets made. ⁓ For some of them, it was absolutely like...

Steven 
Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

James Fester 
it kind of left them a little bit jaded, but for some of them it was really interesting because it turns out that like, I don't know if you've ever seen a legislative session, but ⁓ yeah, it's, it's, they're not, I'm just going to, I'm sorry, representatives, but like, y'all don't work very effectively. And there's lots of yelling and there's not, I mean, it really was the kid, like I turned around and I saw my eighth graders watching this. They're sitting up in the gallery looking down at this.

Steven 
Yeah, fired him up.

You

No.

Yeah.

Yeah.

James Fester 
I think they were voting on the naming of a post office or something, something really innocuous. And I turn around and I look at them and there's this group of girls who never ever stopped talking in my classroom and they're sitting there with their mouths hanging open and they're just slack-jawed and they look at me they're like, my God, they are the worst ever. Like how are they getting anything done Mr. Fester? they were.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Yeah

James Fester 
horrified at what they were seeing and we had to have a long, it was a great learning moment because we had a long discussion about well, okay, you're just seeing one part of it. There's work that goes on in committee. There's a lot of people that support them and you know, it's like they have a staff that kind of helps them craft the legislation. It's not just them, but they were just like, like all of their, their, just their faith, their faith in our democracy was teetering on the edge. I think I brought some of them back, but they were just like, I can see why nothing ever gets done.

Steven 
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. It is a mess. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's having

spent most of last 25 years either at city council meetings, state legislatures or up in DC. Yeah. So yeah. So yeah, I've seen plenty of legislative bodies in action. And yeah, that is, you know, not just a audience member reaction from a 12 or 13 year old.

James Fester 
Yeah.

That's right, because you have that proximity, so you kind of know a little bit of what I'm talking about.

Yeah.

Steven 
⁓ perspective, sometimes it's an adult staffer perspective too. You're kind of going, huh, that's where we wound up on this issue. Okay. ⁓

James Fester 
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's a very telling thing.

When the group of teenage girls that never stop talking say that you're talking too much, you're too disruptive, and you need to get back to work, I think you need to kind of re-examine the way that you know your systems and the way things are running. That's some pretty tough criticism to come back from, you know? For sure.

Steven 
Yeah.

That is, that is some, something to put some thought into. Absolutely.

Well, ⁓ that's yeah, I, I love going to DC. I don't know that I could, live or work there, but you know, I've gone there plenty of times for work, but I, I love it for the history of it. I love it. You know, when I'm, when I'm there to, you know, do my meetings or lobby or whatever I'm there to do to always set aside time to.

James Fester 
Yeah. me too. Totally.

Steven 
to go check out the galleries and the museums and the history that's there, because it is such a fascinating part. It's tremendous what goes on there, in both the astonishment of how is anything getting done here and the astonishment of, some pretty ⁓ important things happening here that could make the world a better place or not, as the case may be, depending on the decisions they make.

James Fester 
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Steven 
It's important that you're taken or were taken as the case is, kids are there to expose them to that because that's important. I think my experience growing up in Texas, it's funny that you say California history wasn't maybe that big of a deal in middle school. My recollection was in middle school, all we did was Texas history because Texas thinks it's still its own.

James Fester 
Very true.

Yeah.

Steven 
country. like middle school history was all about Texas and I didn't get to like US history until high school. ⁓

James Fester 
Yes.

Yeah, they do a

little bit of California history, I think, in like the fourth grade. That's when they kind of hit it hard. But sometimes it's an elective in high school. I never went to a school that was offered there. I would have loved to see it because I really do think. I think there's definitely something to...

Steven
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

James Fester 
⁓ Being able to learn the stories of the places that you live and learn about what went on there. I think that that's a really important thing. I think it also makes a lot. I think there's also a better connection that can be made instead of saying like this event we're talking about happened way over there. Saying like this event that we're talking about happened literally on the ground you're standing on or you drive by where it happened every day. I mean that that I think.

Steven 
Yep. Yep. Sure, sure.

James Fester 
There's, for students that don't share the same passion ⁓ that I do in my subject, and again, I was told on many, many occasions, I was reminded that history is one of the boring subjects, quote unquote, that they need some other reason to care. And sometimes proximity is that motivation, just knowing that like, ⁓ like that thing we talked about today, it like happened right here, or I can like drive right to where it happened, you know, and see that thing.

Steven 
Yeah, nope.

Sure, sure.

Yeah. And it's shaped the world I'm

living in right now. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't, I don't want to jump too fast into the future, but I do want to start transitioning our conversation to getting into your current work. So tell me a little bit about that connection then between, you know, you were a middle school teacher and your journey to getting into, you know, writing books and eventually we'll want to talk about the national. ⁓

James Fester 
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Steven 
Park classroom book, obviously, that we want to dive deep into that. But what's that transition like? How did you start making that move from classroom to doing more with the parks and connection with National Geographic and the United Nations? that, I'm assuming, didn't all happen when you were in a middle school classroom. how did you, yeah, my imagination was wrong.

James Fester 
For sure.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

.

It was all the same week, all through all of that stuff. It was a really, really, yes,

it was a really busy week. didn't get a lot of sleep. No, so a couple of things were really key. The first one was that I, as a way of staying connected to the public lands, I was...

Steven 
you

James Fester 
volunteering on the weekends as a volunteer interpreter for California State Park, specifically Angel Island, which if you are familiar with California, you probably know that there are islands in middle of the San Francisco Bay. You probably know about Alcatraz, been in the news a little bit recently as well, a little bit. And then there's another one called Angel Island, and that's the one that I worked at. It's at the Whole Island as a state park.

Steven 
Mm-hmm.

a little bit recently,

James Fester 
and every corner of the island is almost like a different era of history, which is really interesting. And so I had, which is, you know, I'd lived there my entire life and I had never, ever, ever visited until I was like 25. You know, it's like, it's there, you know, it's like, it's that thing, unless somebody comes from out of town, you know, I'll go someday. ⁓ And I went there mostly because I wanted to bring my students there on a field trip.

Steven 
Yeah. Yeah.

James Fester 
And ⁓ I met a very nice lady at the gift shop and she suggested, well, you know, if you become a volunteer, it all becomes easier and you can come out for free and you can do all these things. And I'm like, ⁓ maybe I should do that. So I did. And I volunteered. Yeah, it was a great pitch. And ⁓ I volunteered and ⁓ met, you know, we got trained as a volunteer interpreter by some really fantastic folks that still work in the California State Parks and ⁓ started to get exposed to the

Steven 
Yeah. Good pitch.

James Fester 
way that education works outside of a classroom. And what, and it was interesting because what I started to do was during my weekdays, when I was in my brick and mortar school, I taught one way. And then on my weekends, I started, I'd used the principles of interpretation and dialogic exchange and leading with questions and all these things in it that I did differently, because that's what I was taught to do on my weekends. And

Steven 
Yeah, yeah.

James Fester 
So I kind of like did this like chameleon thing where I would like kind of shift and ⁓ when what I started to do and I remember I remember I did it for a couple reasons. Number one is I wanted I brought things from Angel Island out into my classroom. Like I had like the full Civil War outfit and the sword and everything much the chagrin of my principal. But like I had the whole kit and the kids thought it was the coolest thing and like they got to like

Steven 
Wow. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

James Fester
hold the sword and wear the outfit in the whole nine yards and they thought it was really cool. And so I was like, well, know, if bringing, I'm bringing stuff off of the island, what if I brought like the way I taught off of the island? And I started to do that a little bit more like kind of just when opportunities arose or when like we would get to a part of the curriculum that aligned to a program I did, I would just do that program basically as the lesson for the day. And what I saw was that the students in my class who were the ones that never really wanted to give me the time of day.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah.

James Fester 
And the ones that really didn't think that history was interested, the ones that didn't play the game of school well, were the ones that were most interested in what was going on. And I started to have less and less and less issues with them. Issues or disruptions, they were more successful by all sorts of measures. The students that were the high achievers are always gonna be the high achievers no matter what. The ones in the middle for the most part are always pretty, depending on the day of the week or where the moon is aligned to what planet, they're gonna be fine.

Steven 
Yeah.

There's, yeah.

Sure.

James Fester 
But the ones that really need the help, the ones that are on the bottom, they're really struggling. Those are the ones that I saw the biggest gains in. And I saw it more and more with that. And so I kind of, at that point, started to say, I wonder, there must be something to this. And I really started to dive deeper into the idea or these principles, this 70 plus year body of...

of knowledge ⁓ that developed the method of instruction, the method of education that's used by informal educators, ⁓ and I brought more and more of it into my classroom. The problem was that when I tried to share what I was doing with the other people that I worked with, they didn't really get it. ⁓ It's kind one of those things that like experiencing it really was

Steven 
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

James Fester
part that was missing and so I knew they weren't going to do that. They weren't going to give up their weekends to come and volunteer with me. So I had to kind of put together a way of taking what was done on public lands or what's done in the parks and bringing that into the classroom in a way that made sense to teachers and that essentially is what led to the book because the point of the book is what classroom teachers can learn from what education looks like on our public lands, specifically the National Park Service because it is the largest and most well-known system of public lands. ⁓

Steven 
Sure.

James Fester 
public land system in the world. So that's why I use that one.

Steven 
Yeah, in

my previous career, I had had an opportunity to manage, to supervise a large department of communicators and we had an education component. know, Kerry Merson and Menopal are rock stars in my world as informal educators. And I'm sure that everything you're talking about, they...

James Fester 
Mm-hmm.

Steven 
they would eat all this up and cause they got it. I could, could appreciate, ⁓ the, the skill sets that you're bringing into the classroom. Cause I could witness it in what they were doing and how they could just wrap the kids up and get their attention and, and, and ways that they always received stellar remarks from the teachers that they were coming to work with. So all that resonates with me, even though I'm, don't fully get it and understand it. I know it's a really, ⁓ important.

James Fester 
Good.

Steven 
⁓ tool. ⁓ So before we transition into the book, or maybe this is connected to the book, I am super curious about the aspects, the two aspects of your bio about the facilitator for the United Nations and your National Geographic certified teacher. Can you tell me a little bit about those two things, what they are and how they came about? Because ⁓ I'm familiar with UNESCO,

James Fester
Yeah.

yeah.

I can. Yes.

Steven 
big fan of what UNESCO does around the world. ⁓ And ⁓ to know that you're connected to that, if you would explain what it is to people and how you got connected to it, and I would appreciate that. And I would love learning myself.

James Fester 
Mm-hmm. Yeah, me too.

Mm-hmm.

For sure.

Yeah, so the National Geographic, and this is actually, I'll start with that because this is something that any educator that might be listening to this could actually participate in this themselves. The National Geographic, we all know, probably remember the giant stack of those yellow magazines that were in our grandparents' or parents' houses and the fun map inserts that were really fun to look at. So they have an educational arm.

Steven 
Great.

Yep.

Yeah.

James Fester
that is, ⁓ that's very active, produces a lot of great stuff. And one of the things that they do is they use what they call, they have a bunch of different things, but their main tool for educators is ⁓ the geographic inquiry process and the explorer's mindset, the idea of basically like, what does it mean to like learn like you are a National Geographic Explorer? And so,

you can actually, if you are a teacher, they still do these trainings quite frequently. ⁓ You can go through and you can go through their process, learn their methodology, learn how they do what they do, they're questioning their inquiry process, and you can ⁓ get what's called National Geographic certified as a teacher. You kind of go through the process, you go through the class, you do a capstone project at the end where you basically take what you've learned and do it in your classroom. ⁓ And I really liked it. I thought it was really valuable because

Inquiry and questions are very central, not just to the work that I did in the classroom and the stuff that I do now, but very central to the stuff that goes on, you know, in informal spaces in our public lands. And so was really kind of an interesting way to just kind of learn one more way or one more approach. And it was broken down very, very easily. So if you have no idea what inquiry-based learning is or how to do it, I would suggest you go check it out. I was also really lucky that they do still do a fair amount of granting. It's definitely changed a little bit in recent years, but ⁓

They do offer grants to all sorts of people, including educators or people that work in the education field where you can propose a project and go and do it. I actually did get not one of their big, what they call their big Meridian grants or their level one grants. I got a smaller one that was specifically for creating resources for COVID. And so it was like...

It was like a one-time small grant to produce some curriculum. And what I did was I basically took a Google 360 images. Like we've probably all done that street view thing where you drop the little yellow pig guy in front of your house and you can kind of see like, hey, I don't own that car anymore. You know, whatever it is. Or like that. I remember when my house was that color. So, ⁓ I took those, I took that technology and I created a series of what I called virtual ranger talks where I took 360 images. People had shot.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

yeah.

James Fester 
And then what I did was I created scripts for teachers to basically take, share the image with their student on their student devices, because they were doing this during COVID when we were all teaching online. And the students could use the 360 image to see what the teacher was talking about. So go on like a geology tour of Yosemite or go on ⁓ a tour of how climate change is impacting national parks by visiting all of these different places. it was basically, I think it was selected not just because it was a pretty novel idea. ⁓

but it was also something that kind of reminded kids that there is still a world out there, even though you're kind of trapped inside. And so I think that's why it resonated with a lot of people. So I did those, those were a lot of fun. They can still be found on my website. And so that was my National Geographic stuff. UNESCO, interestingly enough, kind of did happen, not the same week, but the same time. We, know.

Steven 
Yeah, yeah, right on.

James Fester 
In the US, when we had to pivot to online learning, we were very lucky in the sense that like we had a lot of the tools and stuff in place. Maybe some of the processes had to be included, but we have internet, we have devices, have, you know, learning management systems and emails and all sorts of things that we could draw on in order to be able to keep, you know,

doing as best we could with learning. ⁓ Interestingly, one thing that I saw was some of the students that did the worst in the classroom did the best online because of not just the flexibility, the work-druced workload, the fact that they didn't have to be in a room with other people that were disruptive or people that didn't want to have to be around. ⁓ not everything that... There were some things that think actually came out of it that were really great and I think that we should hold on to. It's probably a different interview for another time, but... ⁓

Steven 
Yeah. Yeah.

You

James Fester 
One group that was really doing some interesting stuff about, you know, if you didn't know how to teach online, like what would you do? And if, or if you were in a part of the world that didn't have the same infrastructure and stuff that we did, what would you do? And one of the groups that was really doing a lot of work to try to help folks was UNESCO. They have, you know, specifically their category for ⁓ research, education research partner, ⁓ which I'm gonna get the acronym wrong.

Steven 
The same resources, sure. Yeah.

Yeah, right on.

James Fester 
the Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Education, Peace and Sustainability. It's M-G-I-E-P-S now, but that's a mouthful. ⁓ they are located in India and they are UNESCO's only category four research partner. So they're the only institution that is funded by UNESCO to do research. And their three areas of interest are SEL, sustainability, mobilizing youth for sustainability and peace. And the third one is ⁓

Steven 
Get it.

James Fester 
online learning, pedagogy, and technology. And the first one was SEL. It's social emotional learning. So ⁓ it's the idea of like, know, yeah, teaching students how to be more in touch and ⁓ aware of and moderating their emotions. So it's a big deal, especially in elementary schools right now. And they do a lot of research with it. They have some really fantastic resources. So if you're a teacher or you're somebody who works with students, especially younger ones,

Steven 
Yeah. And what was the first one you said in? Was it an acronym? Yeah. What's that acronym for?

Okay. Thanks.

Sure, sure.

James Fester 
highly would recommend you go to their website and check them out because they have free online courses that you can take that are really kind of helpful. And I found them because I needed to learn more about online education because at the time I was supporting teachers as their educational technology guy and I needed to have more resources to give them, especially for the folks that are like, I don't know what to do today. Here's what I would do if I was in person. How do I do that? Not in person. And so I was looking for help too. And so I took one of their trainings and I really liked it.

Steven 
Right on.

Yeah.

what to do here at all,

Yeah.

James Fester 
And then they said, we're gonna do like a training, we're gonna do an advanced training for folks that have taken the first one. did that and I really liked it. And then they said, hey, we're gonna invite, if anybody's interested in maybe becoming one of our trainers, you can take this course and based on how you do, we might invite you. And I did that and I did, I got invited to join ⁓ their training staff as a master trainer and ⁓ was, I'm the only one from the US, was the only one ⁓

Steven 
Wow.

James Fester 
was one of two from North America, which makes sense too because all of the work that we do is essentially on the other side of the planet. And so a lot of the trainings that I participate in, 2 a.m., yeah, a lot of our meetings were at midnight. like you, I really support and I really admire UNESCO. I really support their mission. I think it's a really, it's a force for good in a world that could use more of that. And ⁓ was really happy that I got to.

Steven 
Sure.

Sure, probably southern hemisphere as well. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, makes sense.

Yeah.

James Fester 
I was really happy that I'm a part of it and got to be a part of it. I'm not as much anymore just because there's a lot of other stuff going on and some things had to fall to the wayside and staying up until 2 a.m. to work with teachers from the Maldives is a real tough thing to do all the time. But yeah.

Steven 
Sure.

It's, yeah, it's, yeah. Well, that's fascinating.

I didn't realize UNESCO had that aspect. I was familiar, obviously, with their World Heritage sites and their cultural exchanges and all of that aspect of what they do. I didn't realize that component of it. So yeah, thanks for bringing me up to speed on some other aspects of UNESCO. It makes me even more supportive of their global mission to preserve and...

James Fester 
Yeah. yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. They do a lot of really, really interesting stuff. Yeah.

Steven 
⁓ connect heritage and culture sites and educate folks and, ⁓ you know, recognize our differences and similarities and bring us all together around that. That's an important aspect. So, well, jump me into the book then. Jump me in to the National Park Classroom. Tell us what that is and how it can be used and how people can get access to it and all of the knowledge that you share in it. Yeah.

James Fester 
All the fun stuff, yeah.

For sure.

Yes.

Yeah.

all the stuff, I'll give you

the 10,000 foot view. So yeah, the book came out in March. It's published by ISTE, which is the International Society for Technology and Education. I was really fortunate to have a really fantastic book team and a really awesome editor who, when I called up the International Society for Technology and Education and said, I wanna write a book about why teachers should talk more, should.

Steven 
Yeah.

James Fester 
teach more like park rangers, they didn't immediately tell me that I was out of my mind, because it's definitely a niche and a thing that on face value, it's like, it seems like a bit of a mismatch. But ⁓ what's interesting or what I found was that there's a lot of things that exemplify, it's not just education that they do, they have a very diverse portfolio, they have their own standards for what education should look like or what teachers should be doing.

to make sure that you're providing what they call a future-ready ⁓ experience for your students. And a lot of the stuff that I wrote about in book actually aligns very well to their portrait of a graduate or their portrait of a master teacher or whatever. ⁓ And so the book itself, I feel like I've been working on it literally since the first time I went to Yosemite because what I wanted to do was, like I had said, I wanted to distill for a classroom teacher.

Steven 
Right on.

James Fester 
what it is that they could benefit from if they learn more about the pedagogical approaches to teaching and the resources that are produced by public lands. And it definitely, it's something that I would always, ⁓ nowadays what I do, I work with teachers and school leaders as a trainer and a professional development coach. And when I go and I work with them and I see what they're working on or I see the kinds of stuff they're developing in terms of curriculum and I see a connection to like,

one of our national park units, was like, hey, did you know that like, if you go to this website, you can download all of these free resources and all of these images can be just used for free because they're all public domain and you can, and you've got these videos and you might even be able to call up the ranger at this site and have them do like a ⁓ virtual visit with your students. They were all really surprised that that stuff existed. And then they were also a little bit skeptical of will it work because they're like, well, but park rangers aren't teachers. It's not going to work for me. And it's like, but they are.

Steven 
public own yeah

But they are. That's

James Fester 
I understand why they would say that,

Steven 
a big guy. Sure.

James Fester 
but I also understand how incorrect that is. And it's nothing like, it's not like, yeah, you dumb classroom teacher, you don't know what you're talking about. It's just, again, you just don't know what you don't know. ⁓ And sometimes you make assumptions that are just out there until somebody tells you. And so that's what this book was. It was kind of both ways. I wanted teachers to read it because I wanted them to see all of the stuff they could be doing and all the ways they could leverage.

Steven 
Right, right, right.

Right.

James Fester 
this giant educational ecosystem that their tax dollars are paying for. But I also wanted to park rangers to look at it or, know, interpreters is probably the more accurate term, but I'm going to say park rangers just because it, you know, I can sit here all day debating about titles where we can keep talking. So let's just go with it. ⁓ But I wanted them to see it too, because a lot of the case studies and a lot of the examples I give in the book could help them.

Steven 
Yeah, yeah.

Sure.

Sure, right

James Fester 
to diversify and create educational programs that are more responsive to the kinds of things teachers look for or need. Like if you are a park ranger, you are an expert in a lot of areas. Education is not always one of them. You don't always talk classroom teachers. It's very, very rare in fact that you do find ⁓ a ranger, especially one that does programming who has some sort of like formal education background. A lot of times they're either like,

Steven 
Yeah, nice.

formal classroom teaching, yeah.

James Fester 
refugees from that area because they don't want to have to do the classroom. They want to do the fun stuff which leads them into that or they just you know that that's just not their background and not their expertise. Exactly and so and I don't think you necessarily need that in order to be good at what you do especially if you're a park ranger or an interpreter and so I wanted them to have a lot of ideas or things that they could draw on to create better stronger partnerships because when you have a classroom teacher working with a park ranger the teacher knows the

Steven
Yeah.

Yeah, they just evolved into it, Right.

Sure.

James Fester 
content stand. The teacher knows the learning goals, the teacher knows the students, but the ranger knows the content, ⁓ like a mile deep. And the two of them working together, it's like the perfect match where they really do balance each other. And I have a ton of examples in the book of like these insanely amazing partnerships and programs and projects that students completed ⁓ that show just the power of a collaboration like this and wanted teachers to able to take advantage of that.

Steven 
Nice.

James Fester 
⁓ And it's all through the lens of project-based learning, which is the area that I work in, is the idea of, you know, instead of just like keeping learning relegated to the classroom and that the students are just, you know, they're taking in knowledge and regurgitating it for the purposes of tests. It's, we're gonna take that knowledge, they're gonna apply it to a real world situation or a real world problem and what they produce is something.

Steven 
Yeah, yeah.

James Fester 
that they are going to show or is going to be utilized by the people that are trying to solve that problem or that challenge. ⁓ Makes the learning more relevant. It helps them, it really helps them develop and understand like what kinds of opportunities are out there. But like at the end of the day, that's exactly what I was gonna say was that like you never have to then sit there. Like I had to do a bajillion times in my classroom and have a kid slumped over on their desk going like, why does this even matter anyways? It's like, well,

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, why this matters. Yeah.

You

James Fester 
It matters because this person in the community is waiting for us to finish this project and you have to learn all of this to complete this project and answer this question. ⁓ Again, it's just another, it's a more motivating and I believe a more modern way, a more realistic, unauthentic way of teaching. Exactly. For sure. Yeah.

Steven 
Yeah, there's real world applications for educating. Yeah, that's wonderful. I love that. I love that.

So, the book is available for folks to purchase and just kind of use on their own, but you also, as you mentioned, you're kind of a coach and people can contact you and use your services. And it looks like you're part of a team that does this as well. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

James Fester 
Mm hmm. for sure.

I am, yes.

I would love to plug the organization I work for. And so, yeah, I do my own consulting on the side, but I don't do it. ⁓ But ⁓ for folks that are really looking to learn more about things like project-based learning or like how they can bring these types of approaches into their classroom, I would actually direct them to the organization that I work for, which is called PBLWorks. We used to be known as the Buck Institute for Education, and now we're PBLWorks, which is, you can find us at pblworks.org, all one word. ⁓

Steven 
Please.

Perfect.

James Fester 
and ⁓ it's a nonprofit based out of California and for the last 35 plus years it has been, ⁓ I might be a little bit biased, but they have been the leader in the project-based learning field. I might be biased, but if you Google project-based learning, guess who shows up first? Just saying, just saying. ⁓ But yeah, they provide services to not just classrooms, allows those classroom teachers to learn how to do project-based learning and how to bring this approach to their students and develop their own.

Steven 
You

Yeah, yeah.

James Fester 
projects, they also coach leaders in schools on how to like shift, ⁓ for lack of better term, how to create the conditions needed for teachers and students to be able to do these things. Because we know we have the research to back it up, ⁓ that project-based learning works, it works for everybody, we've got the numbers and the research to prove that it does. And lot and honestly too, like I discovered project-based learning kind of by accident because it kind of the

I had experienced it in high school. I was a part of a small learning community. And so when I started going into the classroom, that's just what I did. I didn't actually know it was called PBL until PBLWorks came and trained us at our school. And I was like, oh, this is kind of like what I do. That's what it's called. And that's kind of how my whole relationship with them began and how I eventually started to work for them. But if you are a teacher who is out there and you are feeling...

Steven 
Yeah.

yeah. Yeah.

James Fester 
stressed, you're feeling like the fun has been sucked out of the classroom if you feel as though you're just always burning the candle from both ends and you're just not getting the results you need. I would highly recommend you check this out because I'm one of the reasons why I'm passionate about it is I really do believe that it, number one, I think it's more effective at dealing with a lot of the challenges that you experience, but I also think it's more fun.

I really do. Kids enjoy it more. It's more engaging. It allows you to bring your passions and your creativity into the classroom. It allows you to farm out some of the responsibility for teaching by bringing in outside experts or by having the kids presenting for, you know, people in the community. ⁓ It really is just, think, I think it's better for kids, but I also think it's better for teachers. And I hope, I hope folks take a look at it. And yeah, if you want to learn how to do it, there's no better people out there to teach you than PBL Works. ⁓

Steven 
Yeah. And

James Fester 
Yeah.

Steven 
just looking at the bios of the team that you're associated with there, I was super blown away by all. I was like, wow, these are some really cool people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

James Fester 
Yeah, they're pretty impressive. Yeah.

incredible people and from all across the country, all different walks of life, all different expertise

and interestingly too, like you had asked about things like UNESCO and National Geographic and stuff, a lot of those opportunities I actually found by associating with these people and getting to know the rest of the training staff and just seeing what they're doing, ⁓ I have no doubt that without, ⁓

that because I was able to work with these people and see what they do and how they do things, that's what eventually led me into writing and got me connected with the co-author who I wrote my first book with, he's a wonderful guy named George Valenzuela, who I am very grateful for, for kind of taking me under his wing and showing me the ropes of what it means to be a writer and getting me kind of started with that, which has been great. he's also really accomplished in his own right too, if you look him up online, he's...

He does it all and he does it all very well. So he's a great one to connect with too if you're interested in learning more about things like education ⁓ and SEL and any of the other topics that I talked about. I would definitely check him out. He's fantastic. He's just a good guy too. Like that's the other thing is like, I just like he's as a person I can, I know, right? Like, yeah, but he can, yes.

Steven 
Wonderful. Now, which is, you got to start there. Yeah. If you start there, then everything else can be

building upon, on that, you know, character integrity and being a good person that, certainly resonates a whole, you know, a whole lot further for me than just an arrogant expert in something. Fantastic.

James Fester 
Yeah, totally. All those things are very true, yeah.

Yeah, he's definitely not that. He's very approachable and a great person to talk to.

Steven 
I don't know how all this ties in, but kind of exploring the website and kind of just being impressed by everything that I was looking at and reading. So obviously the National Park Classroom book is there and the workshops and opportunities to learn from you or connect with you and others. I also saw a portfolio of projects that had a whole fascinating list of Indigenous history and water quality and virtual tours and landmark learning and park-based learning.

James Fester 
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Steven 
⁓ It looks like it's just ⁓ full of incredible resources for teachers and hope folks will go check it out and look at everything that you have to offer. Are those other portfolio projects intertwined within the National Park classroom or a little bit or not at all or how does that work?

James Fester 
Yeah, that's

a good there's a whole bunch of stuff. It's kind of like a junk drawer in a way. Yeah Yeah, some of them are in some some of them are in some of them definitely aren't so for example When you look at some of the projects that the group has done or that and it's like it's a it's an informal kind of collaborative just like-minded teachers we've kind of found each other a lot of the folks I found when I was interviewing for my book and we were like Oh, you seem like a cool person. Let's see if we can work together and do some stuff for to give back

Steven 
Yeah, because it looks like they're kind of connected a little bit, but I'm not sure.

Yeah.

James Fester 
you know, to the parks. ⁓ And that's kind of what we're doing now. There's a group of us that meet periodically and we try to figure out what are the things that we can do with our expertise. You we don't have a ton of money. We're not the Rockefellers. We're not going to just buy large tracts of land or hotels or whatever. But as educators, we have skills that we can use and deploy in service of parks that they do indeed need. Like I've done a lot of curricular planning with some parks and they're just like, yeah, we really needed somebody who understood all of this stuff.

Steven 
Sure.

James Fester
And so we've got a, so we've done some of the stuff and some of those things you're talking about in that, in that projects link or some of the past work that I've done, like one of them is the National Geographic project I talked about. Another one was a collaboration I did with, that I helped design and lead with a, with a teacher that I worked with and a park up in Northern Minnesota called Voyagers. It's actually, the project is fully, you can see the whole thing and it's fully downloadable online and it can be done anywhere with any body of water.

So if you are one of the like, I don't know. I mean, you probably, I'm guessing you probably know this, like the 60, 70 % of people who live in a watershed, maybe it's higher than that. You could do that project with your students. And then also like the book itself, if you do purchase the book, which I would love it if people did, the book also comes with 63, what I call them, sparks.

Steven 
Yeah.

Please, yeah.

James Fester 
63 sparks or ideas for projects that come linked to resources that are connected to a national park site. I have one for every national park and you get all of those with the book as well. But I have some of them online and you can kind of see those things. So there's a bunch of stuff. It's things that I've done in the past. ⁓ Things that I'll probably be bringing back and revisiting and such. But ⁓ they're all connected to this idea of getting students opportunities to

Steven 
Awesome. Yeah. Wow.

James Fester 
learn, improve, to connect to their public land so they understand why they're important and so hopefully they become the next generation of conservationists that we need in order to make sure that they are, that they stay around and don't get, ⁓ you know, don't get neglected.

Steven
next stewards.

Yeah.

Yeah, wonderful. And I love that idea of sparks as kind of teaching ⁓ tools. I love that connection to that idea. perfect. Haven't I asked you about your book that you want to make sure people know or understand ⁓ before we transition into your call to action? Is there something that we just need to touch on before we go? Yeah.

James Fester 
to get some ideas to get you started exactly.

Ooh, interesting.

Yeah, well actually this could transition into that call for action, because I can give a little preview of it without, it's a little bit of a spoiler, but not a big one, because there's still lots of stuff worth seeing. So part of the reason, and I'll kind of, this is a story that I tell, it's story that I tell at the end of the book that leads to the call to action, and it is that while I was researching this book, of course, I used it as an excuse.

Steven 
See ya.

James Fester 
to go and visit a bunch of national parks and call it development time. And ⁓ the job that I have, totally, yeah, I have to do it. ⁓ And ⁓ yeah, and so I've been to a few, ⁓ 310 units to be precise, not to brag. So I've been to a couple and... ⁓

Steven 
Of course. Absolutely. That's mandatory,

James Fester 
The job that I have, my nine to five job, it enables me to travel, because I get to travel across the country and work with teachers in their schools a lot of the time. And I was really excited because one day I was assigned to a school in Arizona. And I was like, ooh, I'm going to be in Phoenix. That's only like four hours away from the Grand Canyon. I could do that drive. That's no problem. And it's the Grand Canyon. So like, come on, it's the Rolls Royce of national parks. You got to go. And I'm writing a book about it. So I'm like, I'm going to go.

Steven 
Yeah.

James Fester 
I'm gonna spend a whole day there. I'm gonna do a little bit of walking, sit down and do some writing, interview people, attend. But like most importantly, because I was working on the chapter about ⁓ teaching strategies, I'm like, I'm gonna find every park ranger program I can. I'm gonna find every roving interpreter and I'm gonna just watch what they do and I'm gonna ask them and I'm gonna write everything down and the whole chapter is gonna take care of itself. So I get there and this is the summer. It's the height of the season. You know, it's... ⁓

There was a little bit of rain that day, like this is the height of the busy season at the park. And I showed up super excited to write everything down and do all the things. And I was really underwhelmed by what I saw. So the main visitor's center, which is like, you know, kind of your first stop when you visit the national park, it was only open for four hours and didn't open until noon. ⁓

there were ranger programs, but it was very hard to find them because there were only a couple of them for the day. There were no roving interpreters that were there just engaging the public and finding those teachable moments like I expected. ⁓ And it wasn't just me who was having trouble finding these folks because we had kids that were trying to do their little junior ranger program. And one of the things you have to do is get a signature from a park ranger. And I can't tell you the number of times that I came to a kid and I was saying like, hey, how's it going? Like, what are you learning? Like, we can't do it because we can't find a park ranger.

Steven 
Very minimal. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it's heartbreaking.

James Fester 
And I just

started to feel more and more deflated and I was like, what is going on here? Like, where are all of the learning opportunities? Everything you kind of had to do on your own, which is fine. There are lots of opportunities for that in a national park, but I was really surprised that the human element, that connection that I remember going to Yosemite and going on all these ranger programs, that was missing. And I was really feeling deflated about it when I left. ⁓

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah.

James Fester 
And as I was leaving, saw, I saw, there's a place by where the shuttle drops you off that's a free speech zone where people can like hang out and they can like, you know, share ideas or whatever it is. I think it's a great idea to have those, you know, so you don't like, you can avoid like, you know, conflicts over that kind of thing. But it was a guy in a giant cookie monster outfit, like the kind that you see at Times Square in New York. And he was trying to get people to take pictures with him.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah

James Fester 
And it struck me that I spent all day in national park and I saw more Cookie Monsters than I did Park Rangers. And are the kids at the park gonna take away that as their experience that when I went to a national park, Cookie Monster was more available than a Park Ranger and that's gonna be my experience. And I wanna be clear here because I know that sounds like I'm throwing a lot of shade at the park staff and I'm absolutely not. No. Yes.

Steven 
Yeah.

No, sure a lot of shade at Congress and those who set budgets

and establish, yeah, the park rangers would love to be out there.

James Fester 
Thank you, yeah. that's, yeah, and I, yeah.

The park rangers were frustrated because a lot of the staff had been diverted because they're in the process of redoing the big pipeline project to bring water into the South Rim. And a lot of resources have been allocated that way. A lot of them had said like, hey, I signed up to be somebody who got to interact with the public and now I'm just dealing with parking violations all day or like that garbage.

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah.

James Fester 
⁓

I'm not blaming the administrators of the park or the superintendents because again, like you said, they're dealing with the parameters they're being given and they're dealing with the budgets. Yeah, budgets being set by people who've never visited even and like they got to do what they got to do. I'm not even giving Cookie Monster a bad time. It was 105 degrees and the guy's in a suit just trying to make money. I'm like, you know, big ups to him as well. But it struck me that like we need and so what it struck me was and here's my call to action is that

Steven 
They're doing what they were, policies and the budgets they were given. Yeah.

Yeah, he's doing his... Yeah.

Yeah.

James Fester 
If education is not, it's always gonna get second place and third place when it comes to things like visitor safety and other parts of the experience. And maybe that should, infrastructure and the safety of visitors at parks should absolutely be prioritized, but education is a priority too. And if it's not gonna be something that we can always depend on that.

you go to a park and you learn about why it's incredible so that you walk away wanting to protect it because as the saying goes, we only protect what we know or we only love what you have to learn about it to love about it and you only protect the things that you love is more or less the quote I think. Then somebody else has to take up that mantle and make sure kids are making those connections. And I think teachers are best placed because if you know that every student that comes up through school is going to

Steven 
care about.

Yeah. Yeah.

James Fester 
learn about national parks is going to learn about one and is going to want to go and see it one day. Because again, you don't even have to be a teacher that takes your kids on these field trips. Awareness is the first and the most pervasive barrier to getting people into national parks, not knowing what they are and not knowing how to get to them. Those are the barriers. In some cases, they're even more acute than cost, believe it or not. A lot of people think it's money. It's not. It's just understanding that these are spaces for everyone, that they're important, and that you can go there. If you can remove that barrier,

Steven 
Yeah. Yeah.

James Fester 
and you can tell them and teach them when you go to the Grand Canyon, here's what you're gonna see when you go to the Grand Canyon, here's what those layers mean. And the kids come in there knowing all of that. They are gonna walk away wanting to be the ones that are the custodians. And so if it's not gonna be, if the park staff are doing the best they can, but they can't reach everybody, we need other people to step up. And it should be, in my opinion, I think classroom teachers are the ones that should do it because ⁓ yeah, that's kinda, that's my call to action is that just like we wanna make sure that, and,

And it's nothing that has to be, and it's nothing that's, it's not a political message in any way at all, because if you look at the polls and we have the evidence to show it, there is one thing that both sides of the political spectrum agree to, and that is that the National Park Service is a worthwhile organization and that national parks should be protected. I mean, I know there's degrees to it, but the only other, the only other like,

branch or agency in the federal government that gets the same level of ⁓ trust and respect as the National Park Service are those little beagles that are at the airport that are sniffing people's luggage. People love the the Beagle Brigade, but it's that. It's National Parks, Beagles, and Post Office. so it crosses party lines at a time that is very, very hard to do things like that. And so it's something we could all do and I think we can all own. ⁓

Steven 
Yeah.

Yeah, we all have a responsibility

to it.

James Fester 
Yeah, even if you're not a classroom educator, if you're a parent of a couple of kids and you want to take them to their, tell them a little bit about what they're going to be seeing and why they're going to be seeing it before they go, because they'll appreciate it that much more. And we know that that leads to them being invested as conservationists later on in life.

Steven 
Absolutely. I love that call to action. I would just add, even if you don't have kids or you're someone like me, I mean, it's our responsibility to raise awareness for these amazing places and support those that are keeping them open and keeping them, you know, spaces that are for all of us and using our voices to do that. So I appreciate that call to action. Thanks very much, James.

James Fester 
Yeah.

for

Steven 
Well, let me transition you then into our ⁓ final little bit here, which is talking about hope for the future. And I address hope not as an emotion, but kind of as how those who study it define it. And hope is a state of mind. It's, it's, can have a vision for a better future and we can have some steps on how to achieve that better future. may not know the entire path. We know a direction to at least walk in.

And we have a feeling of agency that there's something I can do to help me get to that vision of a better future. So it's a state of mind that we can cultivate and grow and exercise to generate more hope in our lives and share that with others. So I want to ask you three questions about hope and would ask you not to think too long about it and to kind of give your first gut reaction a kind of a precise answer of, this is what my first thought was or first, you know.

from your heart feeling was about it. So the first question for you James about hope is what is your vision for a better future? It can be for you personally or professionally or for the world, but what's your vision for a better future?

James Fester 
⁓ that's yeah, that's a great question. So first of all, I do absolutely believe that I believe that we are going to continue to have a better future. think, you know, it's, it's, ⁓ that the, that sometimes we swing one way or another, but that we're always on an upward trajectory and that things are going to get better. I mean, as a parent, as an educator, as somebody who's just like, you know, a human on this planet, I don't know if I could really function every day and wake up if I didn't think that.

eventually things are going to get better and that we are we are continuing to we are continuing Lee on an up on an upright project trajectory sometimes that that is a little bit harder to see definitely depending on what's going on in the world things like that, but I do truly believe that and I think ⁓ I one of the things that I ⁓ One of the things that really does give me hope is that I do believe in

Steven 
Sure. Sure.

James Fester 
I do believe that regardless of...

perceived differences or irreconcilable beliefs that I think when you're one-on-one with people and when you actually do sit in conversation with them, very, very quickly you start to realize there's heck of a lot more that you have in common than divides you. And I know that's been said before and I know it sounds kind of trite, but I really do believe it. For example, when I go out and I work in the world,

Steven 
Yeah, it's important. No, no.

James Fester 
and I go all over the country and I work with all kinds of educators and I work with all kinds of people with all kinds of beliefs. And I know when I'm going to certain places that I'm going into an area where demographically they are going to be completely...

the opposite in terms of every single thing that I believe in my values. We don't share a lot of those things. But then I'm able to sit down with them. I'm able to approach them as somebody who's one of their colleagues and as another person. And one on one, those differences, they just don't matter. Not that some of those beliefs and some of those things don't matter, they do, but there are so many more things that are more important. so... ⁓

Even, you know, so when I see things on the news or when I see things on social media that just really get my blood going, I really say like, yeah, but if I sat down with this person one-on-one, I'll bet you that we could find a lot of things that we could agree with. I think it's just, it gets harder and harder with.

Steven 
Yeah, a lot of common ground. Yeah.

James Fester 
as you lose proximity and as the number of people grow, I think that's what really is ⁓ tricky. And so I would, that's what gives me hope is that one-on-one I really don't, is when you actually sit down and talk with people, that there's always a way to bridge any gap.

Steven 
Perfect. So the second question, then you have a vision of this better future where we're connected, we're communicating more, we're finding more common ground, our divisions are being melted away slightly through this proximity and communication. I think you kind of already answered it a little bit, but just to give you a chance to expand on that, why is that important to you?

James Fester 
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I I think it should be important for everybody because I think that it reminds you that no matter how bad it is or how much you're objecting to what's going on this week in the news or the choices that are being made by leaders here and there, I think that you remember that eventually things are gonna swing back the other way and that we're gonna, you know, that...

hopefully calm their heads were prevail that those conversations will be taking place and eventually people will realize like we're gonna make a lot more progress working together than if we're working against each other. I also just don't think it's human nature and I really do believe that like I don't I do believe that in general and this is probably comes as a result of ⁓

of not just, you know, being a teacher for over a decade and working with kids, but also having two of my own. At the end of the day, people want to do good. People want to be good and be seen as good people. don't think, an overwhelming majority of people, you know, there's of course, are there, you know, bad apples in the world? Are there bad people in the world? Obviously, I would, can't say

I can't say, no, there are those people, if you, it's actually, it's a book that I read to my kids a lot when they were younger, is that the author talks about how if you took all of the bad people in the world and you put them in one place, you could fit them all into a six story building, but if you took all of the people that are good and want to do good things for their neighbors, that you wouldn't be able to find a building to hold them all because they would just stretch on and on and on. And I really do think that that's the truth. Even kids who are quote unquote like,

Steven 
Yeah, I agree.

James Fester 
these are the bad kids. ⁓ It's circumstantial. It's a reaction to things that are going on in their lives or their lived experience. It's not the choice that they make, I don't think. I think it's a choice that they're more driven to or they feel like they have to make. And so I think recognizing that and having faith in the fact that people do, their pathway to what they think is good might be the thing that gets them in trouble, but no one chooses to be just

Steven 
Sure.

James Fester 
bad and evil on their own. No. No.

Steven 
Yeah. Waking up in the morning to see how much damage I can do today. We're

waking up to do the best we can with what we got to work with. And yeah. Yeah. So last question then for you, James. So imagine now this future you just described where we're communicating more, we're finding more common ground with each other and, you know, able to express, you know, our human nature of wanting to do good and finding ways to do that together as opposed to at odds to each other.

James Fester 
Yeah, I would agree. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Steven 
that future you just described, imagine that's the world we're living in right now and tell me how that makes you feel.

James Fester 
It feels great. It feels great. It makes me less anxious as a parent because I know that it's the world that my children are inheriting. I know it's the world that other people's children are going to inherit. It's the world where the truly big problems that we all need to figure out, problems around things like...

you know, the future of the planet and the environment, making, you know, the future of making sure that people have what they need to live and to thrive where they're not, where they don't feel this, they don't feel a constant mindset of inadequacy or a lack of what they need that leads to things like greed.

that goes away and then slides to the side and we can actually get down to the real big things that we need to work on to make sure that everybody feels better. ⁓ I mean it's great and it would be it's a wonderful thing and something that I certainly hope that I get to see in my lifetime but ⁓ I'm confident that it's somewhere somewhere down the road.

Steven 
Perfect. Well, I share your vision and your hope for the future and I'm going to try to do my little bits as best as I can to help us get there. So thank you so much for doing what you do as well to make the world a better place, James. And thanks for your book and for coming on the show and sharing your journey with us and all that you're doing. And I encourage everybody to go check out your website. I'll put all of that information in our show notes so folks can know how to get in touch with you, get to...

James Fester 
Thank you. ⁓

Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Steven
purchase your book and learn more about the consulting and services that you offer as well. So thank you so much for joining me on Stories Sustainers. I'll leave you with the last word.

James Fester 
Awesome. Thank you.

Okay, well definitely thank you for having me on. It was a pleasure to get to be on the show and I hope lots of folks listen to it and go and check out the things that I that I looked at and I'd also like to encourage everybody because I know that summer vacation and road trip season is right around the corner ⁓ and if you do end up in one of ⁓ the wonderful places and spaces that I talk about in my book, take a peek in the GIFT shop and see because there are definitely some national parks that are going to be carrying it and ⁓

Steven
Fantastic.

James Fester
If you see it and you want to grab it, please do so at a national park because that way you can keep a little bit more money in there and there's nothing wrong with parks getting a little bit more money, especially now.

Steven
Awesome, I love that. Thank you, James. I wish you all the best and I'll keep tabs on your progress and look forward to supporting you any way I can, because what you're doing is really important. Thanks, James. All right, bye-bye.

James Fester 
Yeah, thank you.

Awesome. Thank you. I appreciate that.

See ya.

Steven 
What a conversation. Today, James Fester reminded us that education doesn't have to be confined to four walls. And in fact, it shouldn't be. We explored the value of project-based learning, the untapped educational power of national parks, and how connecting classrooms with community experts and public lands can transform how students see and engage with the world. From inquiry-based learning to the power of place-based history,

James is helping redefine what meaningful education looks like in the 21st century. As someone who deeply values education, I found this episode both inspiring and affirming, and I hope you did too. James's message about linking America's best idea, our treasured national parks with classroom learning really resonates with me. And look, good teachers are at the heart of every thriving community.

And I've been lucky enough to know more than just a few incredible ones. For example, Ms. Boeck, my high school English teacher, if you're listening, I want to say thank you. You made literature come alive and pushed me to think critically. And I also think of Amy and Terry, dear friends of my wife and me, who dedicate themselves every day to shaping young minds with compassion, creativity, and a whole lot of heart. Teachers like them,

like James are making a lasting impact far beyond the classroom walls. James's approach to blending formal and informal education also reminded me of the powerful work I witnessed firsthand during my time with the San Antonio River Authority. Environmental educators like Carrie Merson and Minna Paul, two talented women I had the incredible privilege of working with, brought creativity, empathy, and clarity to complex issues, making environmental education

not just accessible, but unforgettable. Their work showed me just how effective interpretive education can be. And James's efforts echo that very same spirit. So I want to thank James for coming on the show today and for all his efforts, which are making the world a better place. And if you're a teacher listening to or watching this episode, I want to thank you as well. Thank you for all you do to make the world a better place. For everyone else, here's what I'd love for you to do today.

Support the teachers in your life. Reach out, say thank you, ask how you can help. Partner with a local teacher or school to lead a field trip to a nearby park or historical site. Volunteer your time or skills with an outdoor education program. Or donate a copy of the National Park classroom to your local school or library. And if you love our national parks, go a step further. Contact your congressional representative and urge them

to support robust funding for the national park system. Our parks need resources to stay open, well-maintained and fully staffed so they can continue to serve not only as treasured public spaces, but as powerful platforms for learning and connection. And after doing all that, be sure to get outside and explore your national parks and community parks and learn your local history as well. Find ways to share it too, especially with young people.

You can also support Stories Sustain Us by subscribing to the show, leaving a review or sharing this episode with your favorite teacher, Park Ranger, or anyone else who believes in the power of education and our great outdoors. You can also visit storiessustainus.com to learn more and stay connected. As always, I appreciate all your support. And speaking of staying connected, don't miss the next episode coming out on July 1st.

when we kick off a special two week celebration of the show's first anniversary. Yes, I've been doing this for a year now and it's been an incredible ride. In episode 49 coming out next week, I'll be revisiting some of my favorite moments and memories from the past year. I'd love to hear your favorites too. So please share them on social media and tag stories sustain us on Facebook, X, Instagram and Bluesky . I can't wait to see what you think.

or what you remember as highlights from this past year. And you really don't want to miss next week's episode because at the end of episode 49, I'll be revealing the name of my very special guest for episode 50, which airs on July 8th. And trust me, you won't want to miss that announcement. I'm super excited and incredibly grateful to have this special guest on the show. Can't wait to air it, but we got to get through episode 49 before we get to that special episode number 50. So,

Come check it out next week. You can check out episode 49 of Stories Sustain Us on July 1st at storiessustainus.com, wherever you listen to podcasts and on YouTube. As always, thank you so much for being here today. Keep supporting your educators, keep protecting your parks, and keep working to make the world a better place for all. Until next time, I'm Steven Schauer. Take care of yourself and each other. Take care.