National Park Service Junior Ranger

And speaking of the Junior Ranger program ... check this out:

National Park Service Junior Rangers

I saw it somewhere on the NPS site while I was looking up something else. The Junior Ranger program is targeted for kids ages 6 to 11, and since Sunny just turned 6 ... there we go! The Gulf Islands National Seashore has their Junior Ranger packet as a pdf online so I printed it and put it in a 3-hole-punch plastic binder before we left. (No loose papers kicking around in the van - it was all contained.) It seems like generally, there are activity pages in the packet like word searches, and things to do like find animals or go on a tour or identify plants that are specific to whatever park you're at.

Sunny completed her packet after the tour of Fort Pickens, and we went to the main Gulf Islands visitor's center to get a Junior Ranger patch and the pin specific to the Gulf Islands. She also repeated the Junior Ranger commitment (which I videotaped):

I understand as a Junior Ranger, I will become a Junior Ranger at other national parks. I will protect America's national parks by becoming a Junior Ranger at these national parks, putting litter in its place even if it's not mine, protecting the plants and the animals by not feeding them, keeping them, picking them, or stepping on them, and by staying on the designated trails.

And then there's WEB RANGERS! Sunny and Posy both have accounts on the website to play the games, "decorate" their online "office" and all sorts of stuff. There's even an ID badge that you can print - it's the size of a regular ID card, and I cut them out and laminated them so they don't get ruined in 5 seconds. Anyway, before we left on the trip, Sunny read up on riptides and learned about erosion by playing computer games. Works for me!