As many of my long-time blog readers know, I work as a park ranger for the National Park Service. I want to remind you all that next week is National Park Week (April 20-28) during which parks are free, and have wonderful family-friendly activities. For many parks, this is going to be the main week of extra ranger-led programs for the season since many sites are closing, having fewer programs, and reducing hours due to the recent budget cuts. This weekend, we will have programs geared toward children that we do not offer throughout the year and visitors will be able to interact with various divisions including maintenance & grounds department, law enforcement rangers, museum curators, and the rangers of Interpretation & Visitor Services.
If you bring your children to a national park this week, or any time for that matter, don't forget to ask about the Jr. Ranger Program where children get to interact with the resources and rangers in unique ways and earn a jr. ranger badge, unique to each park. Also, your kids can learn more about the parks by playing online games as a WebRanger.
Have a great week enjoying the National Park Service's wonderful resources!
My family loves to hike, camp, and enjoy or national parks. Thanks for the info on the Jr. Ranger Program, I was not familiar with that!
ReplyDeleteWe are huge parks fans also - love visiting and both of my kids are Jr. Rangers at various locations. We have dreams of volunteering at one of the parks in retirement :) So glad to connect with you - found you from the Hearts for Home blog hop!
ReplyDeleteWe love our National Parks & the Jr. Ranger Program. But, I wasn't aware this was National Parks week. Thanks for sharing that. And, my kids would think I was the coolest mom ever if I was a park ranger.
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