Park Service adds website for teachers

A new website launched by the National Park Service gives Alaska teachers a new tool to engage students in classroom and place-based learning.

The website nps.gov/teachers is a one-stop shop for curriculum-based lesson plans, traveling trunks, maps, activities, distance learning and other resources.

Alaska’s national park-based curriculum and other teacher resources are substantial and varied, and include:

• Distance Learning: Glacier Bay National Park’s “Visiting Glacier Bay” provides an opportunity for a virtual visit to this Southeast Alaska gem.

• Curriculum: Denali National Park’s “Denali Rocks!” focuses on geology and provides eight lessons matched to Alaska State Standards for 6th to 8th grade science. Denali also offers a short video detailing additional resource for teachers. Aleutian World War II National Historic Site features “Attu: The North American Battleground of World War II.”

• Field Trips: Sitka National Historical Park offers a great field trip program titled “Traditional Cooking with a Bentwood Box.” The national teachers site is searchable by location, keyword, and more than 125 subjects, from archeology, to biology, to constitutional law. In addition to park-created content, the site also features educational materials created by NPS national programs like the National Register of Historic Places and its award-winning Teaching with Historic Places series of 147 lesson plans.