Fourth Grade National Parks Passes
Activity - Outdoors
Grades4Science, Social Studies
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Provided by Every Kid Outdoors
What it is
- This outdoor program lets fourth-grade educators print free paper passes that give students and their families a year of free access to national parks, public lands, and waters.
- It also provides four downloadable activity guides covering why public lands and waters are protected, how to care for them through environmental stewardship, the Native peoples who lived on the land before it was the United States, and the difference between weather and climate.
- Though the free passes are only available for fourth-grade students, the activities included are appropriate for most upper elementary classrooms.
Teaching tips
Classroom Implementation:
- Use the activity guides to build students' background knowledge before embarking on a class trip to a national park.
Preparation:
- Teachers will need to input some information, such as the school and teacher's name and email, to generate the park passes.
- The Our Nation's Native Peoples lesson requires a lot of preparation, including contacting a fourth-grade teacher at a tribal school and reading articles to build background knowledge.
- Note that in the Our Nation's Native Peoples lesson, the link for additional narratives of legends about Tso-aa, the link to the Junior Ranger Night Explorer booklet, and the link to the parent letter are broken.
- Consider writing a letter for parents to accompany the park passes, if sending them home with students.
Differentiation:
- Have students do the readings as a paired reading or read these as a class.
Climate Change Connections:
- Use the Citizen Science activity to introduce climate as a concept and build toward the understanding of climate change.
Scientist's Note:
- This resource encourages kids to engage with and care for the outdoors.
Ready to use it?
Hosted on everykidoutdoors.gov
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