THE NATIONAL PARKS

Here a Park, There a Park, Everywhere a Park, Park

SUBJECT:

Introductory lesson to a study of the "National Parks ". This lesson involves Language Arts, Social Studies, Math and Art

GRADE LEVEL:

Third or Fourth Grade

OBJECTIVES:

1. To compare the different meanings and perceptions of the word "park".


2. To write a descriptive paragraph about a park visited.


3. To understand the concept of city, state, and national parks.


4. To research the locations of the national parks.


5. To locate the national parks on the U.S. map.


6. To use the concept of scale to estimate distance on a map.

RESOURCES/MATERIALS:

• U.S. wall map


• Individual student U.S. maps


• Crayons, markers, map pencils

ACTIVITIES:

1. Students will brainstorm in small groups the meaning of the word "park". Then share with the whole class the different meanings. Discuss the meaning of the word "park" that the class will use. To add more descriptive language to this discussion, ask the questions: What does it sound like, look like, feel like, taste like, and smell like?


2. Discuss the different parks students have visited and then ask them to write a short descriptive paragraph about the park he/she has visited. Illustrate the paragraph and share with the class.


3. Categorize the parks by "city", "state", and "national". This includes a review of the concept of city, state, and country (national) . What would the difference be in the size of each park? The National Parks Services suggests a definition for a national park as "a large natural place having a wide variety of attributes where no hunting, mining or other similar activities are permitted. Introduce this definition and the fact that there are 54 national parks.


4. Using the information about the 54 national parks, challenge the students to do research to find where these parks are located. The home page of The National Park Service Park Net has a ranger picture that links to view the parks by state and by name. Assign groups of two students approximately 5 parks to research and locate on their student maps and the U.S. wall map. When all parks are found,the students will share their information with the class, and each student will update their individual student maps to show all the parks.


5. Use the scale on the U.S. wall map to calculate how far the nearest park is from your city. Then choose a park you might want to visit and calculate how far this park is from your city. Compare the estimated distance information with each other.


6. An optional activity might be to challenge the students to create a song or rap following the pattern in the name of this lesson.

FOLLOW-UP:

Evaluation will be done through teacher observation and a creation of a national parks portfolio to be used throughout the study. This lesson is an introduction to the integrated curriculum study of the national parks. Prior to this lesson the students will take a pre-test to assess previous knowledge. A KWL individual chart will be completed with: What do I know? What do I want to learn? What did I learn? This chart will be updated throughout the study for retention and transfer.