The Spotlight on National Park Resources is a biennial meeting between the National Park Service (NPS) Natural Resources and Cultural Resources sectors of the National Capital Region (NCR). The intent of this meeting is to build bridges between the two (often very separate) departments of NPS by highlighting various projects and accomplishments of each and sharing how this information can inform resource management. A few IAN staff were fortunate to score ourselves an invite to this year’s workshop, which was held at the National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) in gorgeous little Shepherdstown, WV.

The workshop presentations were fascinating; they toggled between Natural Resources and Cultural Resources in the NCR and covered a variety of interesting topics. Subjects ranged from the history of slavery in the Harper’s Ferry area, to variation in diets between coyotes and foxes at different NCR parks, the life and accomplishments of Fredrick Douglass, and the genetic composition of the bio-slime on the Lincoln Memorial in DC (a remarkable study that was conducted by high school students at Thomas Jefferson High School!).

As long-standing project partners, IAN was invited to this workshop to present a poster that graphically describes our ideas for a current project we have with NPS. The goal of this project, titled NCR’s Second Century Regional Stewardship Strategy, is to summarize park information and roll it up into an assessment tool. The tool will be used to better inform resource management decisions in the parks. In order to create this tool, we need to identify and map the values and threats within and across NCR parks. One approach we plan to utilize is social network analysis; By recognizing social connections among individuals that are reliant on national parks, management can better target and implement their strategies.

During this workshop, IAN and Diane Pavek, our NPS liaison on this project, took advantage of the fact that we had all our project collaborators in the same geographical location and held a meeting to get everyone up to speed on the project. We did rapid-fire, around the room updates from Natural Resources, Cultural Resources, IAN, and Tim Murtha’s group from Penn State University. Promptly after 30 minutes, our meeting dispersed so that we could attend the after-lunch lectures.

The Spotlight workshop concluded with some thoughtful and inspiring words from Perry Wheelock, the NCR Cultural Resource guru. She sent us on our way with well-wishes and the promise that the next biennial Spotlight workshop would be just as interesting and exciting as this one.