What do a 17th-century cow pasture, fourteen timber cabins in Rocky Mountain National Park, a limestone elementary school in Kansas, and a brand-new community schoolyard in Boston have in common? They’re all part of the same story — America’s evolving idea of what deserves protecting, and why.

As America marks its 250th year, host Ronda Lee Chapman traces that idea through four eras: Origin, at Boston Common, the nation’s oldest public park; Evolution, at Rocky Mountain National Park, where a 42-acre inholding reveals how unfinished “America’s best idea” remains; Disruption, at the Monroe School in Topeka — a building at the center of Brown v. Board of Education, saved from the wrecking ball; and Revolution, at Boston’s Chittick Elementary, where the students themselves designed the newest kind of public space.

Take action: ​Tell Congress to protect the parks, public lands, and historic sites that preserve our full American story → tpl.org/public-policy#take-action

Featured in this episode

• Brown Revisited, a project of Oyez — brown.oyez.org — The audio of the Brown v. Board
• The Freedom Trail Foundation — thefreedomtrail.org
• Friends of the Public Garden — friendsofthepublicgarden.org
• Boston Parks and Recreation — boston.gov/departments/parks-and-recreation
• Rocky Mountain National Park — nps.gov/romo
• Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park — nps.gov/brvb
• TPL’s Community Schoolyards® program — tpl.org/community-schoolyards
• Find a park within a 10-minute walk of home — tpl.org

People. Nature. Big Ideas. is a production of Trust for Public Land in partnership with PGP Productions. Executive producer: Thomas Clayton Miller. Editorial director: Deborah Williams.

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