This past weekend, the STS program set up tables at the Earth Day Expo (held on the campus of Western Dakota Tech here in Rapid City) to share information about STS and ask visitors to think about parks as a piece of nature we regularly interact with.

With a whiteboard for sharing ideas in response to the key question – What do you love about parks? – and a table for visitors to build their ideal park, we invited lots of hands-on participation and engagement.

Parks are a great way to practice STS ways of thinking at any age, since they are intersections between natural and social spaces and they are shaped by our technologies as well as our social needs and expectations. Plus, it’s fun to play with toys, felt, and clay!

We hope to be back at the Earth Day Expo again next year!