Students will camp out and learn the ropes of marine research as part of a week-long exploration of the Outer Banks for honors students from across the country, May 15-21 at Frisco Camp Ground in Frisco, North Carolina. The program is being sponsored by the University of North Carolina Wilmington's Honors Scholars Program.

Fourteen students from ten colleges are participating in the Partners in the Parks project, a collaborative effort between the National Park Service and the National Collegiate Honors Council to provide week-long explorations of selected National Parks.

The students, who are from as far away as Iowa and Rwanda, will be camping in tents and preparing their own food. Seminars led by university faculty and park personnel will include historical, scientific, cultural and other important areas unique to a given park. On Cape Hatteras, members of UNC Wilmington's faculty and National Park (NP) specialists will introduce students to their research in areas of marine biology, barrier islands, ecology, natural resource management, historical preservation and environmental literature.

Participants will also take advantage of exciting recreational opportunities in the parks to broaden participant's understanding of the overall value of national parks to our country and its citizens. While on the island the students will have an opportunity to kayak in Pamlico Sound and travel by boat to Portsmouth Island form Ocracoke.

UNCW faculty and contributing their time and expertise include trip leader Bill Atwill, Kate Bruce, Bob Buerger, Paul Hosier, Tom Lankford, Sarah Underwood and Ami Wilbur. Dylan Figlo and Molly Ryan are two Seahawk honors students participating.

The program began in 2008 as a 2016 National Parks Centennial Initiative and now offers Partners in the Parks Projects in Alaska's Denali NP, Zion and Bryce Canyon in Utah, Grand Canyon-Parashant NP in Arizona, Acadia NP in Maine , Colorado's Black Canyon of the Gunnison, and an urban exploration of parks and monuments in New York from Fire Island to Ellis Island

For more information:
http://www.partnersintheparks.org/
http://www.nchchonors.org/
http://uncw.edu/honors

Media Contact:
Bill Atwill, UNCW Honors Scholars Program associate director, 910.619.7553