Eagle Scouts in a year and National Parks visitor days

[BartHumphries]

Actually, having now had a look at the numbers for new Eagle Scouts, I think the number of Eagles since 1975 is increasing on a nice trend. Here's what I was looking for. Given that the BSA is the single largest user of public lands, and given that the number of Boys who make Eagle should be a good gauge of "active boys" who are going camping, the number of Eagle Scouts in a year should roughly correlate with the number of visitor hours/days at National Parks in the USA.

 

I had the numbers for visitor days in 1975 and 1985 from a LNT book that I have, and I found the numbers for visitor hours in 2000 and 2010 from the National Parks website. A simply bit of math converted those visitor hours into visitor days and then I dropped them into a spreadsheet and let Excel chart them for me. This is what I came up with:

 

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a66/bubbajoe12345/scout/eaglesvsnationalparksvisitordays.png

 

It suggests that Scouts back around 2000 didn't go camping in National Parks as much as they did in other years. It would be really interesting to see BSA camp statistics for those years -- were the "missing" Scouts actually attending summer camps instead of National Parks? If National has seen a fall off from camp attendance in the past 10 years, possibly it's because Boy Scouts are availing themselves of other camping opportunities, such as National Parks.(This message has been edited by BartHumphries)

[Basementdweller]

We don't use national parks, the only one close to us does not have camping facilities. Now we use the national and state forests for our outings.....they are free or cheap.

 

 

The fees for the parks have increased as have the permitting systems restricting access.

 

 

Bart....interested in what your are trying to connect??????? What is it?

 

[shortridge]

I agree with Basementdweller. NP visitation is only one indicator of the nation's outdoor activity. There are no NPs in my state, nor within an easy drive. And consider also that visitor days does not equate to camping. Many parks count as visitors people who drive in, walk around a little, snap a few photos, visit the gift shop, and drive out.

[BartHumphries]

Well, I was putting together a LNT presentation and I thought I'd chart the visitor days that I had -- I noticed a drop in the rate of increase of visitor days in 2000 and wondered if there was a corresponding drop in Eagle Scouts. Nope.

[Beavah]

Yah, hmmm...

 

Not quite sure what to make of that correlation. Much as we think of ourselves as a big organization, we aren't really big enough to independently influence da NP visitation rate.

 

In some ways, da increase in National Parks visitation days is probably best correlated with the federal government's willingness to cut funding for da National Park system, which results in more conspicuous number-counting to justify funding and to collect fees.

 

One might attribute da same underlying causes/pressures to the trend in Eagle Scouts.

 

Beavah

 

[CalicoPenn]

What the national park figures suggest to me was visitor days were slowly increasing then there was a major surge in the 10 years after 2000. What happened in those ten years? Fewer people traveling overseas. More people driving rather than flying to destinations. More people traveling close by because of economics (Mount Ranier National Park, as an example, has become a much more attractive vacation destination for the people who live in Portland, OR and Seattle, WA because it's closer. I was amazed at the number of people I've met in Portland and Seattle who have lived there most of their lives who have never been to Ranier. This past week, I met a man with his family at the George Rogers Clark National Historical Park in Vincennes, Indiana - he lives and works in the area and passes the monument nearly every day - this was the first time he and his family (wife and Cub Scout age boys) had ever visited the monument). An added touch of patriotism after 911 (National Park visitor hours include visits to battlefields, monuments, etc. - how many more people have visited the national park sites in Washington DC since 911?).

 

I think the graphs are an interesting exercise, but in the end, they don't really prove any correlation. I could probably come up with graphs showing that same kind of curve for the number of people who eat Mexican or Thai food, or the number of people who shop at Walmart.

[Tampa Turtle]

I think the graphs are great fun but as yesterdays Dilbert said "correlation is not causation". Still I used to do trend research and some trends tend to "shadow" each other. I can buy off interest in outdoor activity by NP. It is not perfect but makes a rough argument. The reality is we are unlikely to really get to the root of it. I think the prevalence of Eagle Scouts, which is well beaten topic, is in my limited observation that some Troops offer excellent support systems to help make a motivated boy get there.

[qwazse]

Although I'd like to think I was able to convince my wife to take more camping vacations because she trusted my experience as a scout -- I'm not buying it.

 

Nice graphs as usual, though.