Yellowstone: Active Citizenship
During my final general education class, I wanted it to be fun and really get a good experience out of it so I decided to go to Yellowstone National Park. I had never been that far west to Montana and Wyoming. While I was there I was introduced to different ways of living and different stewardship issues that impact the communities. I learned so much while in the west and was able to experience so many amazing things. I feel like life there moves at a much slower pace and they focus on the park. People want to maintain the park and animals, but some feel like the animals are annoying. Some people rely on the park for their livelihood and others say the park destroys their livelihood. I think it is amazing that this community with such challenging perspectives on their community is able to live in so much peace in places. Some really don’t take advantage of the animals from the park and others do.
I think this was one of the biggest things that I learned during this trip is it is important to have your opinions and fight for them, but you must be respectful of your community. I think that overall it comes down to what is best for the community and everyone has differing opinions of what that is. But overall they all think what they are doing is what is best. I was able to experience some of these people’s lives like animal watching all day and ranching. I think it is also important to take part in these challenges that face places because we need to do our part to save the area. We need to share our opinions and make an effort to help the area we love and want to save.
Yellowstone taught me exactly what Longwood wants in a citizen leader and how they want us to take action in our own communities especially after we graduate. Longwood wants people to take charge and make a change or difference in different aspects of our lives. Whether this be in our work, community, or personal environment. I believe that I have been given the tools to do so and be the citizen leader that I want to be.
Below is a paper I wrote as my final reflection about Longwood and the experiences I was able to have. Below that are some of the photos that I took during my trip in Yellowstone.
Letter to Future Longwood Student
