Fifth graders across East Tennessee and Western North Carolina will have a chance to explore one of the Great Smoky Mountains’ most fascinating natural wonders — and their creativity could earn them a trip to Dollywood.
Smokies Life and its partners are launching “Glow Life” for the 2026-27 school year, a science-based educational project centered on bioluminescence and biofluorescence in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The program is designed for fifth-grade classrooms in Tennessee and North Carolina counties near the national park and combines science lessons with plenty of room for imagination.
Teachers participating in Glow Life will have access to free lesson plans and an educational video to help students learn about organisms that produce or reflect light and why those abilities are important to living things in the Smokies.
Then the students get to take what they have learned and get creative.
A fall 2026 contest will invite participating classrooms to develop their own project exploring bioluminescence and biofluorescence. There is no one-size-fits-all assignment. Students can write an essay, create artwork, produce a play or video, compose a song or even imagine an entirely new bioluminescent creature. Other creative approaches are welcome, too.
That flexibility could make Glow Life especially appealing for teachers looking for ways to connect science with writing, art, music and other subjects.
And there is quite an incentive waiting at the end.
Five classes will win a spring 2027 trip to Dollywood, where students will have an opportunity to experience NightFlight Expedition, the park’s newest attraction.
Whether or not a classroom earns the Dollywood trip, Glow Life offers something valuable: a chance for young students to discover that some of the most intriguing science lessons are happening practically in their own backyard.
For East Tennessee fifth graders, the Great Smoky Mountains may look a little different after they discover what happens when life begins to glow.
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