Prince William Forest Park

William "Wild Bill" Donovan

When World War II broke out in Europe in 1939, U.S. intelligence operations were splintered among nearly a dozen federal agencies.

View recipients of the National Park Service Freeman Tilden Awards, which recognize outstanding contributions to the practice of interpretation and education by NPS employees.

The National Park Service congratulates the regional recipients of the 2023 Excellence in Volunteerism Awards. These nominees embody the values of service, engagement, and stewardship fundamental to our national parks.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s … Environman? While it may sound like a Saturday morning superhero, Environman was a National Park Service (NPS) symbol for its environmental education activities in the 1970s. Beginning in 1967 the NPS became a leader in environmental conservation education, which then-Director George B. Hartzog, Jr saw as crucial to the survival of the parks and the planet. Many of those key ideas echo in today’s NPS climate change education.

What if your office were the woods? Your break room a mossy log? This is the reality for members of the Inventory & Monitoring forest vegetation crew. The team has collected data on forest health in NCR parks every year since 2006 and recently completed the fourth cycle of forest vegetation monitoring (2018-2022). Learn what staff biologists and technicians have to say about their experiences in the field these past five years.

With the onset of World War II, the OSS's secret operations—espionage, counter-intelligence, disinformation, and guerrilla leadership—expanded.

This timeline follows events revolving around civil rights in the National Capital Area and related people, places, parks and more.

There is the prevailing misconception that African Americans do not participate in outdoor recreation; however, this misconception is far from reality. While racially exclusionary practices attempted to impose limits on African American participation in outdoor recreation, African Americans participated in opportunities offered by the larger society and also carved out spaces of their own.