National Parks Junior Ranger Program
The Junior Ranger program at the national parks is wonderful. Each participating park has its own activity book for the kids to do with activities specific to that park, and their age determines how many and how complex the activities are that they must complete in order to get their badges.
Normally, you would turn in the book (or at least show it to a ranger) at the visitor center in order to get your badge, but now many are just giving out the badges and trusting the parents to make sure the activities are properly completed.
The Junior Ranger program is really fun for kids. Many of the activities were a little difficult for a four-year-old, but six to ten is probably about perfect. Older kids can enjoy the activities as well. Some of the activities are general, teaching kids things about recycling or light pollution.
Others are things like word searches or scrambles, using words related to national parks and to the specific park you are at.
Others require the kids to actually get out into the park and pay attention to the things they see and do. Like a bingo card where they can check off different plants they saw or draw pictures of animals they saw. Mammoth Cave had a lot of pages dedicated to learning about bats and Fort Pickens was a lot about history.
Usually, you pick up the activity book when you enter the park, complete the required activities during your stay, and they take the completed (or partially completed) book back to the ranger. The ranger then signs it and presents you with your badge. At Mammoth Cave, they gave me the badges with the books and were trusting parents to make sure the kids learned from the activities. The New Orleans Jazz National Historic Park was closed when we were there, but they had put their activity book online so that you could print it out and mail it in, then they will mail you the badge.
At the Gulf Coast National Seashore, the ranger at Fort Pickens asked us to bring in the completed book for him to look over. So that was the first time the kids went in with me. He looked through their books and asked them questions about what they had learned. And then he came out from behind the desk and had them hold up their right hands and repeat a pledge. It was very formal and solemn, and they promised to protect our natural resources, take care of the parks, and share what they have learned, along with a few other things I’ve forgotten. There were two people behind us in line, probably waiting to check in to their campsites, and they made a great audience. They listened very intently and then cheered for the kids when the ranger presented them with their badges. They were very proud.
I really recommend this program if you have kids and are visiting national parks. It’s fun for them, they really learn something about the specific park that is targeted for their age, and they feel like they have done something important and are a part of the park system. I don’t know what we’ll do with the badges later, but for now it is fun collecting them. And as they get older, we can bring out the activity books and finish some of the harder activities.
