National Parks, the Icing on the Cake

Ramona Leanna Watson
Flint, MI


National Parks are important because they help us remember who we were, who we are, and who we will be. These beautiful places help us remember what we’ve already done, and what we need to accomplish to make life better for our future generations. These wonderful historic places help us to understand the diversity of our country and how it came to be. Based on popular sovereignty, we, the people, have the power of government. It is our duty to support important causes. Eight-five percent of people polled by a Harris Survey support the cause of protecting National Parks. What if there were no National Parks? A total of 273,488,751 people would have gone elsewhere taking their money with them. Another reason for supporting National Parks is that 20,000 professional employees would lose their jobs as well as 140,000 volunteers. This would hurt the economy greatly. Imagine if the Grand Canyon was filled in and President Ulysses S. Grant hadn’t signed an act that established Yellowstone as the first National Park. The wildlife found there would have been driven away or even become extinct due to the destruction of habitat. National Parks are like pages of a scrapbook that give us good and bad memories of our land, our culture, our diversity and our being. It is our job as a nation and as citizens to help protect these parks for future generations, so our children can look back at our Nation and say, “Wow!” To protect these places and fight for them so we can spread this knowledge to other citizens throughout our country. We can tell our parents to vote because we are the government! We can send letters to Congressmen and also to National Park Service officials. We can hang posters and fight to show our patriotic devotion to our country because without National Parks we don’t remember that we are a diverse nation. National Parks are the icing on the cake, the chocolate chips in the cookies, the pepperoni on the pizza. We must fight for what we are most truly devoted to and show what being a country truly is. National Parks are important and we must show that they are. We are a Nation and we must show it through our National Parks. Only then can we really know who we were, are, and will become.