Find a National Park and a Ph.D. Research Scholarship

The U.S. National Park Service homepage has a handy new feature for finding national parks all around the country, sorted by name, location, activity (e.g., hiking, camping), and topic (e.g., caves, Civil War, coral reefs). The handy scroll-down menu has a popup feature with thumbnail images of each park and links to directions, hours, reservations, etc. as shown in the picture at right. There's also a special section for nature and science-related topics, which currently features a link to the Canon National Parks Science Scholars Program, which will be awarding eight $80,000 scholarships to Ph.D. students to "conduct research critical to conserving the national parks" in the U.S. Research projects in the biological, physical, social and cultural sciences are eligible, as well as projects in technology innovation in support of conservation science. Applications must be received by 3 May 2007. If you are so inclined, find a park on the website, write a research proposal, and spend the next few years getting paid to camp and hike. Not a bad life, huh?