Earth Day and America’s Largest Classroom

April 22, 2026

Kristin Bennani

This Earth Day, SEGD invites our community to reflect on the power of national parks as America’s largest classroom—and to share their voice in the #OurParksOurHistory campaign.

Earth Day invites us to pause in awe of the natural world—the forests, mountains, rivers, and coastlines that remind us how deeply connected we are to the landscapes around us.

For many people across the United States, those moments of discovery happen in America’s national parks.

With more than 430 sites across the country, the National Park System offers access to extraordinary places where visitors encounter nature, history, and culture in ways that shape how we understand the world. These landscapes don’t simply inspire—they teach. National parks have long served as America’s largest classroom, where millions of people learn about the ecosystems, histories, and communities that shape our shared story.

This Earth Day—and every day—ensuring access to these places and the knowledge they hold matters.

Share Your Story: #OurParksOurHistory

SEGD is encouraging our community to participate in #OurParksOurHistory, a national campaign by Democracy Forward that invites people to share how visiting and learning from national parks have shaped their lives.

The campaign asks a simple question:

Participants are invited to record a short video—whether at a national park, a favorite outdoor place, or even at home—and share it on social media using the hashtag #OurParksOurHistory. By amplifying these personal reflections, the campaign highlights the profound role national parks play in public learning and civic life.

For designers like us, these places are powerful examples of how interpretation transforms landscapes into meaningful experiences—connecting people to ecology, history, and culture through storytelling that’s grounded in research and expertise.

Why This Moment Matters

The campaign comes at a time when the integrity of interpretation within the National Park System is being challenged.

SEGD recently joined a coalition of organizations—including the National Parks Conservation Association, the American Association for State and Local History, the Association of National Park Rangers, the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, and the Union of Concerned Scientists—to challenge a new U.S. Department of the Interior policy that has begun censoring or removing interpretive materials addressing topics such as slavery, civil rights, Indigenous history, and climate science.

The coalition’s legal action, led by Democracy Forward, seeks to ensure that the stories shared in our national parks remain grounded in scholarship, scientific integrity, and professional review.

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Designing Experiences That Deepen Our Connection to Nature

Designers of experiences play an important role in helping people understand the landscapes around them—translating complex ecological systems, cultural histories, and environmental stewardship into meaningful public experiences.

Across SEGD’s global community, designers are creating experiences that help people understand and navigate the landscapes around them—exploring the ecology, history, and stories embedded in place. Here are just a few recent SEGD Global Design Award–winning projects that celebrate and contextualize our relationship to land and landscape:

Forest Reflections

Design: Mijksenaar
Client: Government of Flanders
Award: SEGD Global Design Award, Honor (2025) – Wayfinding

In Belgium’s Gaasbeek and Groenenberg parks, this wayfinding system helps visitors navigate two distinct landscapes while remaining visually integrated with the surrounding forest. Slender mirrored totems reflect the changing seasons, subtly blending with the environment while guiding visitors between woodlands, gardens, and historic structures. By mirroring the landscape itself, the system encourages visitors to notice the textures, colors, and rhythms of the forest—transforming orientation and navigation into an experience of deeper connection with nature.

Cradle Mountain Visitor Centre and Dove Lake Shelter

Design: Futago
Client: umulus Studio, Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service
Award: SEGD Global Design Award, Merit (2023) – Exhibition

Located within the UNESCO-listed Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, this visitor experience reveals the extraordinary ecological and cultural histories embedded in the landscape. The interpretation introduces visitors to the deep time of Cradle Mountain—from ancient geological formations and resilient alpine ecosystems to more than 60,000 years of Aboriginal presence and stewardship. By weaving architecture, landscape, and storytelling together, the project deepens visitors’ understanding of the fragile environment they are about to explore, fostering a sense of wonder and responsibility for this remarkable place.

Bayou Greenways Park

Design: Minor Design
Client: Houston Parks Board
Award: SEGD Global Design Award, Honor (2022) – Placemaking

Bayou Greenways Park celebrates Houston’s complex relationship with its waterways, transforming a flood-prone urban corridor into a landscape that reconnects communities with nature. Through thoughtful placemaking and interpretive storytelling, the park highlights the ecological importance and cultural history of Houston’s bayous while providing green space within reach of more than a million residents. The project demonstrates how design can help urban audiences rediscover the natural systems that shape their city—and inspire new appreciation for the environments that sustain it.

These projects reflect a shared belief across the experiential design field: landscapes hold powerful stories, and thoughtful design can help people see, understand, and care for the places they inhabit.

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A Call to the SEGD Community

As Designers of Experiences, we understand the power of place.

Through research-driven storytelling, thoughtful design, and interdisciplinary collaboration, interpretation helps visitors see landscapes not simply as scenery—but as living systems shaped by culture, science, and history.

This Earth Day, SEGD invites our members and community to lend their voices to the #OurParksOurHistory campaign.

Share your story. Reflect on what national parks have taught you. And help ensure these places continue to inspire learning, curiosity, and discovery for generations to come.