Our Natural Lab

Abstract

National parks are lauded as “America’s best idea” and celebrated for their cultural history and unparalleled scenery. Yet their illustrious scientific history remains largely untold. How many people know that DNA testing owes its origins to a heat-loving bacterium swimming in Yellowstone’s hot springs? Or how the shockingly contaminated soil of a Yosemite canyon alerted the world to the threat of lead belching from vehicle exhausts? Our Natural Lab weaves dozens of such stories across physics, chemistry, climate science, ecology, biotechnology, anthropology, astronomy, geology, psychology, and traditional ecological knowledge to make the case that America’s best idea is also an essential setting for science. Our Natural Lab shows how Yosemite and Olympic built climate science’s famous Keeling Curve, and how plate tectonics owes its aha moment to Pinnacles and Mauna Loa. It probes questions of the future in the labs of park volcanoes: Could an acid-loving fungus be the key to sustainability? Can a Martian rover guide a drone to search for life in a lava tube? Pondering futures closer to home, vulnerable icons like glaciers and sequoias and thriving animals like otters and wolves demonstrate the complexities of modern ecology. And in four stories of famous scientists, seeds of research planted in early park experiences blossom into history-altering ideas down the road. Their lesson, and the lesson of Our Natural Lab overall, is clear: so long as these special places are preserved and protected, remarkable stories of science will continue to be written each day and the legacy of America’s best idea will only grow.