The National Park Service is , and all it wants is a set of聽Legos. Cool national park鈥搕hemed聽Legos鈥攃omplete with tiny rangers. 聽
In March, Gavin Gardner, a longtime National Park Service employee who works at Springfield Armory National Historic Site, uploaded the proposed vignettes to聽, a site where builders can pitch proposals for new sets to the toy company.听
Once someone uploads an idea, it has a year to generate 10,000 votes of support to be considered by the company for production. Even if it gets those 10,000 votes within that timeframe,聽Lego聽has the final say whether the project moves forward. That means the park vignettes still have a long way to go before they appear in stores鈥攊f they ever do. But early support is promising: The set had more than 1,700 votes just three days after Gardner posted his idea on the site.听
Gardner鈥檚 set has scenes from Everglades National Park in Florida, Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska, and Saguaro National Park in Arizona. Even though Lego Ideas projects have to be made with existing pieces, the three parks are still instantly recognizable.
More difficult was finding an appropriately聽sized聽avian聽to represent one of the Everglade鈥檚 many wading birds. 鈥淲e couldn鈥檛 find anything that was quite right, and if we built it ourselves [from blocks], it ended up being bigger than the people.鈥 In the end, Gardner and his wife settled on a parrot, which聽aren鈥檛 endemic to the Everglades, but aren鈥檛 unheard of either.听Two types of parakeet鈥攂oth the result of pets escaping from homes鈥攈ave established residency in the park.听
Gardner is also working to find a better figure to represent the park visitors. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e kind of smirking, and no one smirks when they go to a national park. I want more of an 鈥極oh! Ah!鈥 face.鈥澛
One thing he did get聽absolutely聽right? The rangers are pointing at something in every single vignette, a stance so ubiquitous in the Park Service that there鈥檚聽an .听
The National Park Service has no official role in this idea, but an emailed statement from April Slayton, chief spokesperson for NPS, made it clear the agency is excited about it. 鈥淭he National Park聽Lego聽proposal is a fun opportunity to connect two things people enjoy鈥攏ational parks and聽Legos,鈥 wrote Slayton.听
The set鈥攊f it goes into production鈥攃ould come out at a fortuitious聽time. On March 19,聽CNN aired a special report on the National Park Service鈥檚 鈥測outh problem.鈥澛燗ccording to the report, the number of young visitors to parks鈥攑articularly those under age 15鈥攈as fallen by half in the past decade. While getting kids to play with park-themed聽Legos聽isn鈥檛 as good as actually getting them into parks, it鈥檚 certainly a good place to start.听