Curriculum Materials

Schedule a live virtual visit with a Yellowstone park ranger! Teachers can request a K-12 distance learning program on a wide variety of Yellowstone topics.

Bring your students to Yellowstone for an educational experience of a lifetime. Park Rangers may be able to offer free ranger-led activities for organized groups such as K-12 school groups visiting the park on topics such as geology, geysers, wildlife, ecology, or history.

This 4-5 day residential curriculum-based program is offered for teachers and their 4-8th grade classes. Students learn about the natural and cultural history of Yellowstone, investigate current issues affecting the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and promote stewardship and preservation in the park and in home communities.

Working in small groups, students examine the feeding habits of bears and draw pictures to show what bears do in spring, summer, fall, and winter. Students use a small pattern of a grizzly bear and increase its scale to construct a full-size silhouette of a grizzly in order to appreciate the bear’s size.

Students will analyze the arrowhead logo as an introduction to the National Park Service. Students learn how the design of the National Park Service arrowhead is made up of symbols, and then have a chance to create their own design specific to Hawai‘i. We will then be introducing ways that we can help care for our parks through the 7 Leave No Trace principles, and help students to understand that the National Parks belong to each and every one of us!

X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is one scientific tool archeologists use to study the chemical composition of artifacts found on a site. This lesson plan illustrates the method behind XRF and describes how the resulting data can illustrate where and how ancient peoples obtained resources, whether through local sources or trade. Este plan de clase con actividades incluido también está disponible en español.

Using dilemma cards describing some of the issues affecting Yellowstone National Park, students work in small groups to consider management issues that meet both of the conflicting mandates that the National Park Service must follow. The student will explore the complexities involved in making management decisions and discover the far-reaching consequences of park management decisions.

Create your own petrified log and learn how the petrification process works.

Create your own caldera to see what the Yellowstone Caldera might have looked like after the eruption.

Use the rangers' formula to predict the next eruption of Old Faithful Geyser.