Our National Parks

(Grand Canyon picture from U.S. National Park Service)

This week in class we read a non-fiction piece about Yosemite National Park. The U.S. National Park Service was established to preserve America's wilderness. These impressive places include Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite Valley National Park, and, of course, the Grand Canyon. In national parks, the nature is preserved and protected. No trees are ever down, and all of the animals are safe from hunters.

Other national parks Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, Colonial National Historical Park in Virginia, and Denali National Park in Alaska.

The most well-known park is the Grand Canyon. (Mrs. Alaniz told us about her first visit to the park just a few years ago, and about how beautiful it was. Some students in our class have been visited Yosemite with their families!)

Read more about our U.S. National Parks at this link: http://www.nps.gov/index.htm.

We also learned a new vocabulary word:
Naturalist: A person who makes a study of living things
Famous naturalist: John Muir

Since many of us love picking flowers, looking under rocks for bugs, and playing outside, we decided we are a class of naturalists!

What else does a naturalist do? What living things do you want to study?