In our busy lives most of us don't have years to devote to learning about the Southeast's natural crown jewel. But our curiosity about the Smokies can be sated thanks to a partnership between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the University of Tennessee. This partnership, known as the Smoky Mountain Field School, is celebrating its 20th anniversary of pairing experts and students on the trails and in the forests of the Smokies. The classes range from Orienteering to Nature Photography to Fly Fishing to the Secret World of Spiders. Instructors tailor their trips to educate, not exhaust.
Most classes combine classroom and outdoor field work.
Discussion and questions are encouraged. The Smoky Mountain Field School welcomes all adults in all programs. Children between the ages of six and 12 may enroll in the special half-day family programs, including courses like Animal Tracks and Traces and Sharing Nature with Children. An outdoor writer with two books about the Smokies, I teach a class for the field school. The students are as diverse as the forest through which we hike.