Visiting National Parks as a Christian Homeschool Learning Experience
The beauty of homeschooling is the ability to tailor what you learn and how you learn it. Traveling the country full time made us quickly realize just what incredible learning experiences were in store for our children (and ourselves), especially as we visited our country’s national parks.
Here’s how we handle visiting National Parks to ensure they’re productive times of learning and fun for our young kids.
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What is a “National Park?”
First, let’s establish some clarity on what I’m referrning to when I mention national parks.
There are the designated 63 National Parks in the US.
This is what most people think of when they hear “national park,” and these are what I’ll mainly refer to in this blog post. However, some of the best learning opportunities have come from the National Park units. These are divisions of the national park system, and there are 424 of them in the country.
These include National Battlefield Parks, National Monuments, National Preserves, National Lakeshores, National Historical Parks, National Scenic Sites, etc.
A note on biblical world view
It’s essential to keep in mind that just like anything, what the world presents takes our discretion and it’s mandatory to measure it against the truth we know in the bible.
The wonderful thing about Christianity is that science does not contradict the bible! However, the world’s inaccurate conclusions to science do. So it’s important to teach our children scientific facts and truthful conclusions that go beautifully hand in hand with the bible.
Distinguish truth from faslehoods.
Some of the most common lessons at national parks that are held up by poorly assembled deductions are:
The earth is billions of years old
That something came from nothing
Also note that a lot of history is being rewritten.
Just visiting historical sites around our country now that we had visited as children have vastly changed. People wiped from history due to their fallen nature and bad choices, and important stories of liberty being replaced by stories of the indigenous people.
Some of it admittedly appropriate, but wiping out the entire story of Lewis and Clark expeditions in St. Louis? Too far.
Use your God-given parental authority to guide your children’s learning experience in a way that’s glorifying to the Lord, and teaches them truth.
A fun practice
One of my favorite resources for teaching your children how to use proper discernment of truth is Foundation Worldview. She has some GREAT practices for growing our children’s personal convictions and discernment.
We ask: is this true? Just because someone in authority tells us it’s truth, it does mean it is true. So let’s do our best research to find out!
Then utilize the bible, science, and logic to land on the truth.
Here’s an example:
Claim: The earth is billions of years old, and started with a big bang!
The question: Is this true? How old is the earth and how did it begin?
Bible: In the beginning, God created the earth (Genesis). And this timeline (that is backed by evidence in history, our dating system marked by B.C. and A.D.) shows that we live on a young earth, and creation occurred thousands of years ago.
Science: What evidence is there that shows the billions of years the earth has been in existence? Or rather, does it actually show evidence of a global flood? What does the Second Law of Thermodynamics say about how living organisms progress?
Logic: When has something come from nothing? When have we witnessed in nature something improving and advancing with time instead of decaying? Does it make sense to you that our earth would be THAT old given what you witness in nature?
Aligning your travel schedule to national parks and school subjects
One of the most exciting parts of planning out our school year on the road was looking for the opportunities to align where we were going to be with what we were going to study.
The two most flexible subjects for this are science and history.
Here are our top 8 National Park units to visit in America for educational purposes:
20 most popular National Parks and a study topic for each visit
1. Arches: arch formation from the Great Flood (they actually talk about the “rush of a large amount of water” in the Visitor Center) and sandstone materials
2. Big Bend: Sam Nail Ranch and desert wildlife
3. Yellowstone: study on hot springs, volcanos, and sulfur pools
4. Grand Teton: John Colter and the Lewis and Clark Expeditions
5. Glacier: glacier formations and how they feed into rivers and lakes
6. Grand Canyon: canyon development from the Great Flood, rock layers, and fossils
7. Zion: creation of narrow sandstone canyons
8. Yosemite: Sierra Nevada, the largest fault-block mountain range in the United States, what a fault line is and how it impacts geological formations
9. Great Sand Dunes: how sand dunes form in various places on earth
10. Death Valley: “gold fever” and the history of the gold rush in California
11. Theodore Roosevelt: study on bisons (buffalos), and how Native Americans used buffalos for their needs
12. Biscayne: study on coral reefs and the life living in the reefs
13. Mesa Verde: cliff dwellings and the life of the Pueblo people
14. Mount Rainier: ash flow and volcanic activity, and how it changes our ecosystem
15. Canyonlands: unique plant life, including cacti, moss, grasses, and wildflowers
16. Rocky Mountain: wildlife management, animals that live at altitude, and “fourteeners”
17. Everglades: the subtropic ecosystem of wetlands and a study on alligators
18. Bryce Canyon: the development of hoodoos, which are spire-shaped rock formations
19. Sequoia: underground cave formations and the Sequoia giants
20. Joshua Tree: unique trees and a metamorphic rock formations
Tips for teaching at National Parks
1. Teach your main point ahead of time.
Children need repetition. To think that seeing sites and reading plaques at a park will give your children memorable facts to store and be quizzed on later just isn’t realistic. I like to teach my kids ahead of time.
I’ll read stories, or we’ll watch a YouTube video on the place we’ll be exploring. This gets the kids excited to see what we’re about to experience, and helps with information retention.
2. Have printables for your visual learners.
Sometimes national parks have interactive and printed materials for kids to keep and color, but I can’t always count on it. So I’ll browse Pinterest ahead of time for free resources that I can print and bring along, or have them do afterwards.
National Park coloring books are also a fun option!
3. Encourage your child to document their experience themselves.
For younger children, this might look like coloring a picture of their time, and for older children it could look like journaling about their time. Provide journal prompts for your older kids. This might look like:
What was your favorite part about this national park?
What was one new thing you learned during your visit?
What will you always remember about your time in the park?
Is there a funny story you’d like to remember about your visit?
Do you hope to visit the park again someday?
Taking photos is also a great way for letting your children document their experiences. Just like you do! There’s a great camera on Amazon for young kids. My six-year-old son loves his camera! We originally got him a “child’s camera,” the quality just isn’t great with those.
4. Junior Ranger Program and passport book.
We debated whether or not our (at the time) five-year-old cared about having a Junior Ranger book, but we’re so glad we invested in this! It’s something exciting for everyone (including us) to look forward to and gives us a mission at every visitor center.
5. Utilize visitor centers and museums.
I know, the gift shops are total tourist traps. But so many of them have incredible learning experiences, and essentially mini museums inside. Our surprising favorites have been Valley Forge (they had a large area in the visitor center all about the war, George Washington, etc. that took us nearly half an hour to go through) and Grand Canyon (so much to see and learn about in every single building, with multiple centers that offered different experiences).
Make sure to look it up ahead of time so you know the hours, time of demonstrations, etc. AND set expectations when it comes to gift shop purchases. We always have to make sure we’re on the same page when it comes to buying something in the gift shop BEFORE we arrive!
6. Continue the lesson after the visit.
Don’t beat a dead horse on the matter, but typically while there, you get inspiration about how to take the lessons even further, and may even utilize some books, videos, or materials you purchased while at the park.
While you had the opportunity to teach generic materials beforehand, now you can reference photos and materials from the experience itself to build upon. And kids usually love recounting the time they had!
I have some fun and informational printables below that I recommend.
Some of my favorite national park and biblical science resources
Illustrated national parks book: this was fun for us to look at with the kids before heading on a trip. Not super detailed, and it’s illustrated, not photos. But again, just fun!
Junior ranger and adult passport booklets
Answers to Top 50 Questions about Genesis, the Flood, and Creation
Mere Science and Christian Faith (for adults)
The Compelling Evidence for Creation
National Park Research Pages (highly recommend this for homeschooling!)
National parks are exceptional learning experiences for kids, where they can acquire knowledge about the environment, history, and culture while enjoying exciting outdoor adventures with the family. It’s a perfect field trip to homeschoolers as they observe God’s magnificent creation. Science and the bible go beautifully hand in hand, so enjoy teaching your children truth, wonder, and awe as you explore our nation’s parks!
