May 14, 2018 | After a short internship with the National Park Service during her senior year of college at the UW, Allison Burdick wasn't sure where she's end up. Like many college grads, Burdick tentatively ventured into the professional world, taking a corporate job at Starbucks in a field she didn't go to school for. When park ranger Kelsey Johnson offered her the chance to apply for a yearlong paid position at the National Park Service, she jumped on it.

March 16, 2018 | Fifty-three young adults took the AmeriCorps pledge to “Get Things Done” and support a legacy of service and conservation stewardship at the National Park Service. These Community Volunteer Ambassadors will serve with the NPS for 50 weeks and be trained as community and volunteer engagement coordinators.

October 25, 2017 | This summer, Penn State student Maggie Kuzemchak ventured far outside of her comfort zone. So far, in fact, that she began the summer by moving to rural South Dakota. “I packed all of my things and moved halfway across the country to live in a small town where I knew no one,” Maggie said. 

April 15, 2017 | I graduated from Winona State University in Winona, MN in May of 2016 with a BS in Geoscience: Environmental Science. During school I took as many opportunities as I could and my internship here at Salinas Pueblo Missions was not my first Geoscientist-in-the-Parks (GIP) internship in the search for paleontology experience. In the summer of 2015 I worked at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in Colorado. After that experience in a park founded largely because of its paleontological resources, what interested me most about the position at Salinas Pueblo Missions was the opportunity to work in a park that had not yet been explored for paleontological resources. The geology underlying the park has been studied for decades and the paleontology in the area has been pretty well documented but no one had yet examined the units within the park boundaries.

March 12, 2017 | In honor of AmeriCorps Week 2017, I would like to share my story of service, with the hope that other will commit their skills, knowledge, and time to tackle pressing problems and strengthen our nation. As part of the Geoscientists-in- the-Parks (GIP) program, a partnership between the Geological Society of America (GSA), Environmental Stewards, and the AmeriCorps program, I had the privilege of guiding approximately 900 third-graders from Richland and Lexington Counties, SC, on a journey to discover their natural environment.