How Long Does It Take to Write a Storyline?

Teachers often ask me, “How long does it take to write a storyline?” Well, here’s the thing. It varies and as a teacher, I’m sure you know that a lesson/curriculum is never “done.” Alas, this is the beginning of editing (and upgrading) Great Basin National Park (GBNP) storyline. 

And to be clear, this is more about editing the completed GBNP storyline than creating it. That’s for a different post.

The Trip That Started It All

I first visited GBNP in 2018. It was a last minute addition to a month long Canada/north west United States road trip. Here’s the thing about GBNP, you have to travel through the middle of nowhere and I mean nowhere to get there. It’s the kind of location where you really need to make sure you have enough gas because there are literally no options for long spans of desert road.

So, why travel all the way to GBNP?

For starters, it’s home to the oldest known living individual tree, named Methuselah. It’s a bristlecone tree and they’re pretty adapted to living in harsh, high altitude conditions.

A Night Sky That Stuck With Me

But what really caught my eye and left a memorable impact was the night sky.

Remember, GBNP is in the middle of nowhere, which is ideal for a great night sky. I’ve seen some incredible night skies in Texas, the Andes Mountains in Chile, and Joshua Tree National Park, but GBNP rivals the best of them.

And that is probably why the Great Basin Observatory made its home within the park. It’s the only national park with a research-grade observatory. GNBP is also recognized by Dark Sky International as a premier International Dark Sky Park.

So maybe the storyline started then, with that unplanned visit in 2018. 

Teaching Space

The great thing about being assigned to teach a freshman astronomy class, is that students come in already loving space. They want to learn more about what is out there, how our planet came to exist, and how do we learn about things that are so far away!

Over the years, I led fun, hands-on lessons about the Big Bang, modeling constellations, and create scale Earth-moon-sun models. The individual lessons were fine-tuned over the years, but they lacked the intentional cohesion of a storyline that begins with a phenomenon and works to answer students’ questions.

Writing the Storyline

When brainstorming how this storyline would begin, my mind kept taking me back to viewing the night sky at GBNP. I just knew.

How could the national park that hosts an annual astronomy festival not be the center of this phenomenon?

GBNP was the first space-centered storyline I’ve written. Even with an eager audience, there’s A LOT of information about space to share with students. That meant A LOT of research, along with plenty of double- and triple-checking, went into developing lessons that are not only engaging, but rigorous and focused on understanding rather than memorization.

Although I had been teaching astronomy for about six years, it wasn’t until 2025 when I really buckled down and organized GBNP storyline. It was released and ready for the world in April 2025.

So, I suppose you could say writing this storyline was a compilation of seven years of real-world experience, classroom practice, and research.

Editing Upgrading Great Basin NP Storyline

Getting back to the part where lessons are never done; it’s 2026 and time to take the feedback and new ideas and get to editing Great Basin NP. I keep saying “edit,” but it’s actually more than that. GBNP is getting digital alternatives for every lesson, Big Idea and Vocabulary trackers, and a stations review lesson. And that’s just for the students. Teachers will have lab support videos, facilitation tips in the newly formatted teacher guide, and quick PD videos based on teacher FAQs.

Editing Great Basin Goals:

This round of edits upgrades includes the following goals:

• • Incorporate updated resources and new lessons
  • Ensure NGSS alignment
  • Fix any silly mistakes, e.g. grammar, typos (Because I’m human 😆)
  • Improve ease of use for teachers and students