Celebrating the fifth anniversary of American Frontiers, Public Lands Interpretive Association has created an online slideshow about the history of America’s Public Domain. Titled The Geography of Freedom: A Brief History of America’s Public Lands, the slideshow was conceived as a legacy project of American Frontiers: A Public Lands Journey. “Our goal was to create an interactive media overview of the history and benefits of public lands,” said Stephen G Maurer, project director. “A rich, multimedia environment was chosen as the delivery method, rather than a textual exposition,” explained Maurer, “in order to engage a larger audience who may not have had prior interest in the subject of public lands.”

Funding for the project was provided by the New Mexico Humanities Council, Public Lands Interpretive Association, and the sponsors of American Frontiers. Geography of Freedom was designed to become a permanent part of PLIA’s website at www.publiclands.orgg/visitorcenter/slideshow It is also available as a free PDF download or CD.

American Frontiers Lesson Plans Now Available
Teacher Trekkers Dr. Kay Gandy, Catherine Kiffe, Robert Ashley and Michael Murphy have worked with National Geographic to prepare a set of lesson plans to share the information they gained on the American Frontiers Trek with schoolchildren everywhere.

Lesson plans cover habitats, endangered species, public lands, land management, and trails. Each lesson meets standards for geography standards as defined in National Geographic’s Geography Action! program, and helps students develop geographic skills while learning about their public lands. Lesson plans are available as downloadable Acrobat Reader pdfs.

For discussions about using these lesson plans, and if you have questions for the American Frontiers team, please visit our discussion boards, and click on the link for Students and Teachers.

The Public Lands Journey, July 31 – September 27, 2002

Adventure. Danger. Excitement. Awe-inspiring scenery. A challenge: to find a border-to-border route that never left public lands.

Adventure was had. Dangers were overcome. Excitement was continuous. Awe-inspiring scenery became routine. The challenge was met.

Lives were changed forever.

Meet the women and men who undertook this historic journey. Read about their adventures in their journal entries; see what they saw through the pictures they took. Learn about our public lands: they belong to all of us. It's all here on this website.

The Journey Continues

American Frontiers: A Public Lands Journey is an ongoing educational program about public lands. Check out our Special Exhibits for major public land themes, our Museum for a brief history of our public estate.

How did American Frontiers: A Public Lands Journey succeed in its mission to raise consciousness about the importance of public lands? Is the Trek still having an effect years later? Trekker Jan Nesset delves into this question and comes up with some suprising answers.

The Trek may not have captured the headlines, but it has changed the lives of every one of the thousands of people who participated, and these great folks are all working within their communities now to similarly inspire their friends, neighbors, students, and families.

Click on the link below to read the full article.