Our Programs

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Archaeological Site Steward Program

In an effort to reduce damage to archaeological sites in the Monument, Partners designed and is coordinating the Site Steward Program. Volunteers are trained to inspect their assigned sites for signs of damage caused by natural erosion, animal activity, looting, or vandalism. Findings are reported to a GSENM archaeologist or to law enforcement. As of Summer 2011, the program has stewards active in the southern portion of the Monument; volunteers in the Cannonville-Escalante area of the Monument will be trained in Fall 2011. The volunteers who make this program possible are major contributors to the protection of Utah’s invaluable cultural and scientific resources. For information about the program or to volunteer, contact Karolyn Tenney, Site Steward Coordinator, 435-644-1306.

 

Education Outreach

Each year from October through May, Partners’ Education Coordinator Wade Parsons and a group of dedicated volunteers take hundreds of elementary school students on a journey into the ancient past at the Kanab Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument Visitor Center. With the visitor center’s Arroyo Site mural in the background, the teaching team elicits the students’ ideas about the daily activities the people in the mural are engaged in and the tools they are using. The volunteers lead the students in some of those same activities: grinding corn with a 900-year-old mano and metate, and using an atlatl (spear thrower) as the ancient hunters did.  The students also learn about the regional styles of pottery painting and then make their own designs on blank pottery sherds with colored markers.  The two-hour program blends learning and doing and is a fun way to make children from Kanab, Fredonia, and Page aware of the history contained in the monument.

Teachers can also arrange to bring this learning experience to their classrooms.  Wade has tailored the lessons to the elementary, middle school, and high school levels; all lessons comply with Utah education standards. Wade brings a Discovery Trunk containing regional pottery sherds and stone tools, along with only slightly smaller versions of the mural and archeological timeline in the Kanab Visitor Center. He teaches the students while demonstrating to teachers how the Discovery Trunk can be used to meet their educational goals.

For more information, call Wade Parsons at 435-644-1302.

Paleontology Lab

Over the years the GSENM paleontology lab has become filled with thousands of specimens from the fossil-rich badlands of the Kaiparowits Plateau. Much of this bounty still lies wrapped in protective plaster jackets due to the delicate and lengthy process involved in preparing specimens for display and study. Since the lab relies on dedicated volunteers to help in the preparation of these treasures, Partners hired a geology graduate to organize the lab, catalog its contents, and train and coordinate the volunteers. There are now six work spaces for volunteers to prepare things like dinosaur bones and skin, and several species of turtles, crocodiles and ammonites, among other ancient animals. The lab is open to volunteers Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  To volunteer, call Tylor at 435-644-1262.

 

Native Plant Restoration

This $38,000, two-year project brings together Kanab High School students, Monument staff and Partners, to grow, study and re-establish native plants on the Monument. Funding comes from Partners and from other organizations.

Students collect Winterfat and Indian ricegrass seeds on the Monument in the fall, raise the seedlings in the school greenhouse throughout the winter, and plant seedlings on the Monument in spring. The project is very hands-on and gets the students out in the field regularly.

For more information, call Wade Parsons at 435-644-1302.

 

Escalante River Watershed Partnership

We’re part of a project that’s improving the Escalante River’s health by removing invasive Russian olive from the river and its tributaries. Partners is just one of 25 groups and agencies managing this effort. In late 2010, we received a multi-year grant that allows us to hire employees to oversee the logistics of cutting Russian olive from the watershed, and to do the actual cutting.

For information on the project or on volunteering, e-mail Kris Pack at kris@gsenm.org.  Also, visit the Escalante River Watershed Project’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/EscalanteRiverWatershedPartnership?ref=ts

 

Southern Utah Oral History Project

This oral history project was one of the first projects begun on Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Since 1998, historians have gathered nearly 300 interviews with long-term residents of the dramatic and wild country in and around the Monument. In 2010, Partners helped add two dozen more histories by funneling BLM and matching state of Utah money to the project.

To visit the online archives at Southern Utah University’s Sherratt Library, go to http://www.li.suu.edu/page/special-digital-collections-grand-staircaseescalante-national-monument-collection.

 

 

Digital Library

Hundreds of scientists have done research on the outdoor library that is the Monument. Soon much of that research will be gathered in one place, online, and free to the public. Volunteer Barbara Mossinghoff (pictured at right, receiving an award from BLM State Director Juan Palma) has collected more than 500 digital versions of research papers that are ready to go on a server. We’ll link to the server when the library is ready.

 

Southern Utah Resource Recovery Fund

We’ve established a fund that we hope will serve as a deterrent to would-be thieves of cultural resources on southern Utah’s public lands. In 2010, BLM asked us to establish and administer a fund to offer cash rewards to those who help convict thieves who steal archaeological or paleontological artifacts from area public lands.

Here’s how it works: Partners collects donations for the fund and earmarks money for rewards based on the advice of BLM law enforcement. Rewards will be payable only upon conviction. Upon conviction, we will ask the court to order the guilty party to pay restitution back to Partners to cover the cost of the reward, thereby keeping the fund intact. BLM law enforcement believes, and we agree, that such a reward will not only help bring perpetrators of such theft to justice, but also deter other potential perpetrators from committing crimes in the first place.