By Amber McIver-Traywick

The Surveyor

The National Park Service (NPS) has a great ongoing program where the kids in your life can become a real Junior Ranger. It’s a fun an educational program with several avenues to obtain badges, do activities, and learn about our national parks and their inhabitants.

The NPS Junior Ranger program is an activity-based program conducted in almost all parks, and some Junior Ranger programs are national. Many national parks offer young visitors the opportunity to become Junior Rangers.

After kids (and adults) complete a series of activities during a park visit and share their answers with a park ranger they receive an official Junior Ranger patch and Junior Ranger certificate. Junior Rangers are typically between the ages of 5 to 13, although people of all ages can participate and collect unique badges from hundreds of parks, sites, memorials and national seashores.

The age-appropriate booklets are a fun way for kids to gain a better understanding of the incredible natural world they are visiting. Topics include archaeology, astronomy, caves, wildlife, fishing, wilderness exploration and more.

Booklets for each park, as well as general guides, can be downloaded and printed from the national parks website or you can contact the park you plan on visiting to see if the booklets and badges are available at that location and are generally found in visitor centers.

If you can’t make it to many parks there are also WebRangers, a digital way kids can learn more about the parks system. By jumping on a computer, kids can help a baby sea turtle reach the sea, be a spy, drive a dog sled, and much more.

For more information about the Junior Ranger program, visit nps.gov/kids/jrrangers.cfm. For specific information on Rocky Mountain National Park Junior Ranger program visit nationalparks.org/our-work/programs/junior-ranger.