OXFORD – Nancy Philbrick, a sixth-grade teacher at Oxford Elementary School, spent her summer working as a teacher-ranger-teacher at Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island.

The innovative and competitive program, which draws teachers from around the country, allows educators to lead interpretive programs, staff visitor centers, shadow park employees and create lesson plans – all while wearing the national park uniform.

The goal is to help teachers introduce their students to the outdoors and the tenets of conservation and preservation through first-hand experience.

Participants like Philbrick will also wear their ranger uniform to school during National Park Week in April as a way of eliciting questions from students and staff.

Philbrick said she was drawn to the program because it enabled her to develop more hands-on lesson plans for her students. She also hopes her experiences at Acadia will introduce her students to life outside their small town. She said, “I hope that through the study of the national parks, they’ll understand that this could be an opportunity for them to travel.”

For Philbrick’s students, that travel opportunity is about to become a reality. In November, her class is scheduled to attend a three-day Schoodic Education Adventure (SEA), a hands-on, curriculum-based residential program at Acadia.

Acadia is interested in attracting Maine schoolteachers working with urban or underserved students to the Teacher-Ranger-Teacher program.

For more information, visit http://www.nps.gov/acad/`forteachers/teacher-ranger-teacher.htm. Interested parties can also call Education Coordinator Cynthia Ocel at 288-8822 or e-mail [email protected].