National Parks
Ron Harp
Hamilton City Schools
Fall, 2010
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division,
[reproduction number, e.g., LC-B8184-3287
This lesson plan introduces the American National Parks system to elementary students and traces the
development of these parks.
Overview/ Materials/LOC Resources/Standards/ Procedures/Evaluation/Rubric/Handouts/Extension
Overview
Objectives
Recommended time frame
Grade level
Curriculum fit
Materials
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Students will:
 Use primary resources to learn about the National
Park System.
 Examine maps to learn about the 19 different types
of areas that the National Parks System take care of.
 Examine maps to learn of the distribution of
National Parks.
 Recognize the characteristics of the parks due to the
region of the country they are located in.
 Be able to explain the history of the National Park
system.
 Recognize the establishment of National Parks all
around the world.
One or Two Class Periods
5th Grade
Social Studies – Geography Benchmarks 2 & 8
Government Benchmark 1
Computer/Projector
Map handouts
Reading handouts
Ohio State Learning Standards
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.
Procedures
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Day One:
 Ask students if they have ever visited a national
park. Which park and the state it’s located in.
 Make a list of the events or activities the students
remembered about their visit to the park.
 Make a list of the physical features students
remembered about the park.
 Have students read the handouts on the National
Parks.
 Break students into groups of three or four students.
Have the groups examine the photos chosen of the
national parks.
 Have students discuss and answer the group
questions.
 Have groups present one or two of their answers to
the class.
 Give students websites to look up information on
individual National Parks.
 From these websites have students fill in the
National Parks road trip sheet.
EXTENSION
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Have students choose four of the photos and posters
from the Library of Congress Gallery provided.
Students will analyze the photos and posters. They
will make a list on the Photo Analysis Sheet of
twelve features found in those four photos that they
are unaccustomed to seeing in their everyday lives.
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Individual Questions from Readings
1. Who was the First American who thought of a National Park?
a. George Catlin
2. What did Congress give the State of California to be steward of 1864?
a. Yosemite Valley
3. The first National Park is called what?
a. Yellowstone National Park
4. Name the President who established Pelican Island in Florida as the first National Wildlife
Refuge?
a. Theodore Roosevelt
5. What did the Organic Act signed by President Wilson in 1916 create?
a. The National Park Service
6. What act by Congress gave all units of the system equal legal standing in a national system?
a. General Authorities Act of 1970
7. What is the only way National Parks can be created?
a. By an Act of Congress
8. Who aids the Secretary of the Interior on making additions and management policies for the
system?
a. National Park System Advisory Board
9. What is the worldwide organization that looks after national Parks and Protected Areas?
a. The International Union for Conservation of Nature
10. Where is the world’s largest National Park?
a. Greenland
11. President Andrew Jackson set aside four sections of land in 1832 in what state?
a. Arkansas
12. Name the three groups that helped insure the passage of legislation to make Yellowstone the first
National Park.
a. Conservationist, politicians and business
13. How many National Parks does the United States have?
a. 58
14. Name the continents that have National Parks according to the article “National Parks.” (Hint,
look at the pictures too.
a. Asia, Africa, North America, Europe, Australia
National Parks Group Questions
1. As a group what are six features that would motivate your group to visit a specific National
Park?
2. How many days would your group need to spend in a particular park to know it well? Why?
3. In which season would it be best to visit a particular National Park your group picked?
Why?
4. If your group was sending the class postcards of your National Park what would the picture
be? How would you describe what your group is enjoying on this trip?
5. Give four reasons why or why not your group would want to live in this National Park.
National Parks Roadtrip Plan
1. In which region of the country would you be able to visit the largest number of National
Parks in the shortest period of time?
a. Southwest
2. Name the state that has the most National Parks.
a. California
3. In which direction would you drive to reach Arcadia National Park if you start from
Columbus, Ohio?
a. Northeast
4. The southern most National Park in the continental US you could visit on your driving trip is
what?
a. Everglades National Park
5. Which National Park would you not be able to reach?
6. If your roundtrip took you to the Gates of the Arctic, National Park what country would you
have to drive through other than the U.S.A> to get there?
a. Canada
7. Which state would your destination be if you want to see Old Faithful go off right on time?
a. Wyoming
8. The two National Parks you could visit to see the Appalachian Mountains are:
a. Great Smokey Mountain or Shenandoah National Park
9. You decided fresh pineapple sounds really good, which National Park would you drive to
opps sail to?
a. Haleakala
10. After watching the launch of the last space shuttle which National Park would you visit to see
it land on Lake Superior?
a. Voyageurs
http://www.yourguidetotheus.com/us_national_parks_map.html.
Photo Analysis Sheet
Photo #1
Photo #2
Photo #3
Photo #4
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http://www.yourguidetotheus.com/us_national_parks_map.html.
United States, national parks
http://go.grolier.com/atlas?id=mtlr053
National park
A national park is a reserve of natural or semi-natural land, declared or owned by a government, set
aside for human recreation and enjoyment, animal and environmental protection and restricted from
most development. While ideas for national parks had been suggested previously, the first one
established, in 1872, was the United States' Yellowstone National Park. An international organization,
the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and its World Commission on Protected
Areas, has defined National Parks as its category II type of protected areas. The largest national park in
the world meeting the IUCN definition is the Northeast Greenland National Park, which was established
in 1974. According to the IUCN, there are about 7000 national parks worldwide (2010 figure).[
In 1969 the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) declared
a national park to be a relatively large area with particular defining characteristics.[4] A national park
was deemed to be a place
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with one or several ecosystems not materially altered by human exploitation and occupation,
where plant and animal species, geomorphological sites and habitats are of special scientific,
educative and recreative interest or which contain a natural landscape of great beauty.
the highest competent authority of the country has taken steps to prevent or eliminate as soon as
possible exploitation or occupation in the whole area and to enforce effectively the respect of
ecological, geomorphological or aesthetic features which have led to its establishment.
visitors are allowed to enter, under special conditions, for inspirational, educative, cultural and
recreative purposes.
In 1971 these criteria were further expanded upon leading to more clear and defined benchmarks to
evaluate a national park. These include:
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a minimum size of 1,000 hectares within zones in which protection of nature takes precedence
statutory legal protection
a budget and staff sufficient to provide sufficient effective protection
prohibition of exploitation of natural resources (including the development of dams) qualified by
such activities as sport, fishing, the need for management, facilities, etc.
While national parks are generally understood to be administered by national governments (hence the
name), in Australia national parks are run by State Governments and predate the Federation of Australia.
History
In 1810, the English poet William Wordsworth described the Lake District as a
"sort of national property in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive and a
heart to enjoy".
The painter George Catlin, in his travels through the American West, wrote in 1832 that the Native
Americans in the United States might be preserved
"by some great protecting policy of government ...in a magnificent park ...A nation's park, containing
man and beast, in all the wild and freshness of their nature's beauty!"
Similar ideas were expressed in other countries—in Sweden, for instance, the Finnish-born Baron Adolf
Erik Nordenskiöld made such a proposition in 1880. The Scottish-American naturalist John Muir was
inspirational in the foundation of national parks, anticipating many ideas of conservationism,
environmentalism, and the animal rights movement.
The first effort by any government to set aside such protected lands was in the United States, on April
20, 1832, when President Andrew Jackson signed legislation to set aside four sections of land around
what is now Hot Springs, Arkansas to protect the natural, thermal springs and adjoining mountainsides
for the future disposal of the US government. It was known as the Hot Springs Reservation. However no
legal authority was established and federal control of the area was not clearly established until 1877.
The next effort by any government to set aside such protected lands was, again, in the United States,
when President Abraham Lincoln signed an Act of Congress on June 30, 1864, ceding the Yosemite
Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias (later becoming the Yosemite National Park) to the
state of California:
"The said State shall accept this grant upon the express conditions that the premises shall be held for
public use, resort, and recreation; shall be inalienable for all time." — U.S. Congress, 1864
In 1872, Yellowstone National Park was established as the world's first truly national park.[5] When
news of the natural wonders of the Yellowstone were first promulgated, the land was part of a federally
governed territory. Unlike Yosemite, there was no state government that could assume stewardship of
the land, so the federal government took on direct responsibility for the park, a process formally
completed in October 1, 1890—the official first national park of the United States. It took the combined
effort and interest of conservationists, politicians and especially businesses—namely, the Northern
Pacific Railroad, whose route through Montana would greatly benefit by the creation of this new tourist
attraction—to ensure the passage of that landmark enabling legislation by the United States Congress to
create Yellowstone National Park. Theodore Roosevelt, already an active campaigner and so influential
as good stump speakers were highly necessary in the pre-telecommunications era, was highly influential
in convincing fellow Republicans and big business to back the bill.
The United States in 1872. When Yellowstone was established, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho were
territories, not states. For this reason, the federal government had to assume responsibility for the land,
hence the creation of the national park.
The "dean of western writers", American Pulitzer prize-winning author Wallace Stegner, has written that
national parks are 'America's best idea,'—a departure from the royal preserves that Old World
sovereigns enjoyed for themselves—inherently democratic, open to all, "they reflect us at our best, not
our worst."[6] Even with the creation of Yellowstone, Yosemite, and nearly 37 other national parks and
monuments, another 44 years passed before an agency was created in the United States to administer
these units in a comprehensive way — the U.S. National Park Service (NPS). Businessman Stephen
Mather and his journalist partner Robert Sterling Yard pushed hardest for the creation of the NPS,
writing then-Secretary of the Interior Franklin Knight Lane about such a need and spearheading a large
publicity campaign for their movement. Lane invited Mather to come to Washington, DC to work with
him to draft and see passage of the NPS Organic Act, which was approved by Congress and signed into
law on August 25, 1916. Of the 393 sites managed by the National Park Service of the United States,
only 58 carry the designation of National Park.
Following the idea established in Yellowstone there soon followed parks in other nations. In Australia,
the Royal National Park was established just south of Sydney in 1879. Rocky Mountain National Park
became Canada's first national park in 1885. New Zealand established Tongariro National Park in 1887.
In Europe the first national parks were a set of nine parks in Sweden in 1909; Europe has some 359
national parks as of 2010.[7] Africa's first national park was established in 1925 when Albert I of
Belgium designated an area of what is now Democratic Republic of Congo centred around the Virunga
Mountains as the Albert National Park (since renamed Virunga National Park). In 1926, the government
of South Africa designated Kruger National Park as the nation's first national park. After World War II,
national parks were founded all over the world. The Vanoise National Park in the Alps was the first
French national park, created in 1963 after public mobilization against a touristic project.
National Parks - A Brief History
One of the first people generally credited with conceptualizing a "national park" was George Catlin
(1796-1872), a self-taught artist who traveled extensively among the native peoples of North America,
while sketching and painting portraits, landscapes, and scenes from daily Indian life. On a trip to the
Dakotas in 1832, he worried about the impact of America's westward expansion on Indian civilization,
wildlife, and wilderness. They might be preserved, he wrote, "by some great protecting policy of
government . . . in a magnificent park . . . . A nation's park, containing man and beast, in all the wild and
freshness of their nature's beauty!"
The idea had gained some acceptance years later, when in 1864 Congress
donated Yosemite Valley to California for preservation as a state park. The
establishment of Yellowstone National Park by act of Congress on March 1,
1872, for the first time signified that public lands were to be set aside and
administered by the federal government "for the benefit and enjoyment of the
people." In 1891, President Harrison established Yellowstone Timberland
Reserve as the nation's first forest reserve, and in 1903 President Roosevelt
established Pelican Island in Florida as the first national wildlife refuge. There
was still no real system of national parks in the United States until August 25,
1916, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Organic Act creating the
National Park Service (NPS). Established under the umbrella of the
Department of the Interior, the NPS was responsible for protecting the 40
national parks and monuments then in existence.
Dinosaur National Monument
courtesy of the National Park Service
Yellowstone National Park
courtesy of the National Park Service
In the years that followed, additional national parks and monuments
(mostly in the western states) were administered by the NPS, while
other monuments and natural and historical areas were administered as
separate units by the War Department and the Forest Service of the
Department of Agriculture. No single agency provided unified
management of the varied federal parklands. An Executive Order in
1933 transferred 63 national monuments and military sites from the
Forest Service and the War Department to the National Park Service.
This action was a major step in the development of today's truly national
system of parks-a system that includes areas of historical, cultural,
scientific, and scenic importance.
In 1970, Congress declared in the General Authorities Act that all units of the system have equal legal
standing in a national system. Areas of the National Park System, the act states,
"though distinct in character, are united through their inter-related purposes and resources into one
national park system as cumulative expressions of a single national heritage; that, individually and
collectively, these areas derive increased national dignity and recognition of their superb environmental
quality through their inclusion jointly with each other in one national park system preserved and
managed for the benefit and inspiration of all people of the United States..."
Additions to the National Park System are now generally made through acts of Congress, and national
parks can be created only through such acts. But the President has authority, under the Antiquities Act of
1906, to proclaim national monuments on lands already under federal jurisdiction. The Secretary of the
Interior is usually asked by Congress for recommendations on proposed additions to the System. The
Secretary is counseled by the National Park System Advisory Board, composed of private citizens,
which advises on possible additions to the System and policies for its
management.
Though we use the term "national park" in a general sense when referring to the
individual units within the National Park System, the classification system used
by NPS actually encompasses 19 separate designations. Some are descriptive
listings, such as lakeshores, seashores, and battlefields, but others also include
titles that can't be neatly categorized because of the diversity of resources within
them. The National Park System today comprises more than 380 areas covering
more than 83 million acres in 49 States, the District of Columbia, American
Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, Saipan, and the Virgin Islands. These areas are of
such national significance as to justify special recognition and protection in
accordance with various acts of Congress.
In the next segment I examine the classification system used to define units of
the National Park System.
Lincoln Memorial
courtesy of the National Park Service
Image
Description
Citation
URL
Lassen Volcanic
National Park,
Ranger Naturalist
Service.
Library of Congress,
Prints & Photographs
Division Washington,
D.C. 20540
http://memory.loc.gov/
cgibin/query/r?ammem/w
papos:@field(NUMBE
R+@band(ppmsca+133
98))
Upper Yosemite
Falls
Library of Congress,
Prints & Photographs
Division [reproduction
number, e.g., LCUSZ62-110212]
http://memory.loc.gov/
cgibin/query/r?ammem/pa
n:@field(NUMBER+
@band(cph+3c32182))
Grand Canyon
National Park
Library of Congress,
Prints & Photographs
Division Washington,
D.C. 20540
http://memory.loc.gov/
cgibin/query/r?ammem/w
papos:@field(NUMBE
R+@band(ppmsca+133
97))
Buffalo at Wind
Cave National
Park, Black Hills,
South Dakota
Fred Hultstrand History
in Pictures Collection
(NDSU, Fargo, N.D.)
North Dakota State
University Institute for
Regional Studies
NDSU Dept. #2080
P.O. Box 6050, Fargo.
Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs
Division [reproduction
number, e.g., LCUSZ62-110212]
http://memory.loc.gov/
cgibin/query/D?ngp:1:./te
mp/~ammem_aypv::
Courtesy of the Frances
Loeb Library, Graduate
School of Design,
Harvard University
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Mt. McKinley
and the Alaska
Range, Mt.
McKinley
National Park,
Alaska.
Great Smokey
Mountain
National Park
http://memory.loc.gov/
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Web Sites
http://www.yourguidetotheus.com/us_national_parks_map.html.
http://go.grolier.com/atlas?id=mtlr053
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_park#History
http://usparks.about.com/library/weekly/aa012598.HTM
Rubric For Individual Questions
Grade is based on a fourteen point Rubric
One points awarded per question
Correct answer is provided.
0 points awarded per question
Wrong answer or blank answer
Rubric For Group Questions
Grade is based on a twenty point Rubric
4 points awarded per group question
Response is answered completely in complete sentences.
Opinions supported with facts from the maps, handouts, websites, and class discussions.
3 points awarded per group question
Responses are answered completely in complete sentences.
Opinions are supported with information taken from maps, handouts, websites and class
discussions.
Questions are not answered as thoroughly, lacking information (facts and support) as a four point
answer.
2 points awarded per group question
Response is not answered in complete sentences.
Opinions not supported by materials provided or inaccurate information.
0 points awarded per group question
Response is incorrect.
Rubric For National Parks Roadtrip Plan
Grade is based on a twenty point Rubric
2 points awarded per question
Response is correct.
0 points awarded per question
Response is incorrect.