Don’t stow the camping gear and hiking boots just yet. As we move into fall, good weather may inspire some to stretch the camping season, and autumn can offer the most colorful time to take a walk in the woods.
And there’s another incentive, particularly for those families whose fourth-graders have just returned to class. President’s Obama’s Every Kid in a Park offers free National Park admission passes to fourth-graders and their families, as Herald Writer Jessi Loerch reported in The Herald’s Explore NW blog this week. The potential savings are not insignificant, considering this year’s fee increase for most national parks, and it’s especially helpful for those families on a budget. Admission to Mount Rainier and Olympic National Park, for example, is now $20 for a vehicle, driver and passengers.
Registration for the passes is simple: Children in the fourth-grade and their parents or guardians can sign up for the free passes, good between now and Aug. 31, 2016, at www.everykidinapark.gov. The website also offers help for planning trips and lesson plans for educators.
The opportunity for students and their families to visit our national parks comes during what will be an eventful year.
Although the first national park, Yellowstone, was created in 1872, the National Park Service was inaugurated by President Woodrow Wilson on Aug. 25, 1916, meaning the park service will celebrate its centennial next year. Along with a chance to experience the natural and geographical world around them, the next year will also offer a living lesson in American history about the events and people, including naturalist and “Father of the National Park Service” John Muir and President Teddy Roosevelt.
Even if the camping gear has been stowed for the season, fourth-graders can still talk their parents into weekend day trips, not just to Rainier or the Olympics, but to other national park sites in Washington state, some of which are already admission free, including the North Cascades National Park, Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve on Whidbey Island, the San Juan Island National Historical Park, the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park in downtown Seattle and the national recreation areas at Lake Chelan and Lake Roosevelt.
The free admission to national parks, of course, offers benefits for fourth-graders and their families, an opportunity for exercise, clean air, education and an appreciation for the world around them. But there’s also a benefit for the parks themselves.
With Congress back in session, one of the pieces of legislation now up for consideration is renewal of the Water and Land Conservation Fund, which provides grants and other funding for local, state and national parks and preserves. The fund, now in its 50th year, is supported exclusively by royalties from offshore oil-drilling leases. Congress has only until Sept. 30 to reauthorize the program. Public support of the fund will be crucial to its continued existence.
Every Kid in a Park also is important because it endeavors to create new stewards for our public lands, teaching children and reminding adults that places like Rainier and Ebey’s Landing and other parks not yet created need to be preserved for themselves and for their children by showing them how they are already linked to these places.
A few years before his death in 1914, John Muir wrote: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”
By being good stewards of our parks and public lands — by saving them — we save ourselves.
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