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Official websites use .gov
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Kids & Youth - Yosemite National Park (U.S. National Park Service)

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Official websites use .gov A.gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( Lock Locked padlock icon ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

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Yosemite National Park is located in central California, about 140 miles (225 kilometers) east of the city of San Francisco. It is known for its imposing granite mountains...

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Complete the Acadia Quest

Acadia Quest is a series of youth- and family-oriented experiences in the park that encourage youth and families to explore, learn about, and protect national parks and other conserved lands.

Families or friends create a team and complete activities in categories of Explore, Learn, and Protect. For more information, visit the Acadia Quest page on the Friends of Acadia website.

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For Kids - Acadia National Park (U.S. National Park Service)

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Acadia Quest is a series of youth- and family-oriented experiences in the park that encourage youth and families to explore, learn about, and protect national parks and other conserved lands. Families or friends create a team and complete activities in categories of Explore, Learn, and Protect.

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Acadia National Park was the first national park established in the eastern United States. It covers more than 35,000 acres (14,000 hectares) along the coast of Maine....

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The Everglades is the United States' largest wilderness with a subtropical climate. In general, a subtropical climate is not as warm as a tropical climate. It also is not as cold as a temperate one. A mixture of tropical and temperate plants and animals live in this unique area.

Saw grass, which may grow 10 to 15 feet (3 to 5 meters) tall, covers much of the watery land. Islands called hammocks sit in between stretches of open water. These hammocks are home to trees and shrubs, including palms, pines, cypresses, oaks, and saw palmettos.

Many birds and animals live in the Everglades. These include herons, egrets, alligators, snakes, and turtles. The hammocks shelter such animals as deer, wildcats, pumas, bears, and many reptiles.

In the past, people drained parts of the Everglades to create farmland. They also built levees (ridges) to prevent flooding in the region. These human activities destroyed much of the Everglades. Today laws protect the marsh from further damage.

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The Everglades is a huge marsh, or wetland, that covers much of southern Florida. It borders the Gulf of Mexico on the west and the Florida Bay on the south. A narrow belt of...

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Family on a boardwalk
NPS Photo

About the Everglades -
Fun For Kids

Kids can have a great time exploring the Everglades with their families and friends. Take some time to look over some of the exhibits and films to be found at our different visitor centers. Participate in any one of our regularly scheduled ranger programs. Take a stroll along one of our trails in search of some amazing wildlife.

With a little work, kids can even become an Everglades National Park Junior Ranger!

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Kids & Youth - Everglades National Park (U.S. National Park Service)

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Kids can have a great time exploring the Everglades with their families and friends. Take some time to look over some of the exhibits and films to be found at our different visitor centers. Participate in any one of our regularly scheduled ranger programs. Take a stroll along one of our trails in search of some amazing wildlife.

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Joshua Tree National Park, desert and wilderness area in southern California, U.S. It is situated just east of Palm Springs and adjacent communities and about 60 miles (100 km) east of San Bernardino, on the border between the Mojave and Colorado deserts. The park has an area of 1,234 square miles (3,196 square km), about three-fourths of which has been designated as wilderness. It was established as a national monument in 1936, was designated by UNESCO as a biosphere reserve in 1984, and became a national park in 1994. Park headquarters are at Twentynine Palms, just north of the park. The park is noted for its variety of desert plant life, in particular the Joshua tree ( Yucca brevifolia), a species of yucca.

Rugged bare-rock ridges of gneiss and huge granite boulders form a dramatic backdrop to the park's flora and fauna. The eastern half of the park is in the low-lying Colorado Desert and features the Pinto Basin ringed by low mountains. The Mojave Desert, situated at elevations above 3,000 feet (900 metres), encompasses the western part of the park and is bordered on the west by the Little San Bernardino Mountains, which rise to about 4,250 feet (1,300 metres). The region's climate is warm and exceedingly dry, with hot summers and cool winters. Daytime highs in summer often exceed 100 °F (38 °C) at lower elevations, and nighttime lows in winter often drop below freezing. The park receives an average of 4 inches (100 mm) of precipitation annually, often as brief torrential summer thunderstorms that can cause flash flooding; snow can fall at higher elevations in winter. Diurnal temperature changes are large and can be as much as 40 °F (22 °C) in a single day.

The Colorado Desert area in the east is drier, and creosote bushes are abundant, together with some cholla cactus and spidery ocotillo. The somewhat wetter Mojave Desert contains extensive stands of Joshua trees, which are unique in their appearance, with multiple arms ending in bunches of needlelike leaves. There are also five desert fan palm oases in the park, where water found at or near the surface supports these native trees. Wildflowers grow throughout the park and may begin blooming as early as February in the Pinto Basin.

Wildlife is diverse and relatively abundant in the park. Mammals commonly found there include mule deer, desert bighorn sheep, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, bats, jackrabbits, and a wide variety of rodents (notably kangaroo rats). Among the reptiles are lizards (including geckos, iguanas, and skinks), numerous snakes (with several species of rattlesnakes), and the threatened Mojave Desert tortoise ( Gopherus agassizii. There are a few amphibians, notably California tree frogs ( Hyla cadaverina) in the north. Some 250 species of birds have been sighted in the park, a great many of them transients passing through in spring or fall. Notable permanent residents include roadrunners, cactus wrens, Gambel's quail, red-tailed hawks, and golden eagles. Among winter and summer visitors are juncos, cedar waxwings, Scott's and northern orioles, and western bluebirds.

Joshua Tree National Park is located relatively close to the large Los Angeles metropolitan area to the west, and the central and western portions of the park are accessible by paved road via entrances in the northwest, north, and south. The number of visitors is high year-round, but usage is especially heavy in spring and fall when the temperatures are more moderate. Visitor's centres, open throughout the year, are located at the three entrances. The park's proximity to large urban areas has generated environmental issues, notably frequent periods when smog obscures the sky and also drops nitrogen-rich compounds onto the soil that facilitate the growth of nonnative plants. A nonnative and invasive plant species of particular concern is the tamarisk, which thrives in watered areas and crowds out native species.

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Joshua Tree National Park | California, USA, Hiking, Camping

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Joshua Tree National Park, desert and wilderness area in southern California, U.S. It is situated just east of Palm Springs and adjacent communities and about 60 miles (100 km) east of San Bernardino, on the border between the Mojave and Colorado deserts.

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Joshua Tree National Park, in the Mojave Desert in California, was named after the Joshua tree (left), a type of yucca.

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Jeff Ohlfs began his love affair with Joshua Tree National Park a quarter of a century ago. The chief ranger of the park, Ohlfs has seen more of Joshua Tree than any other person posted there. “I remember believing I could never work in a desert park,” says the national park service veteran. “Now, two decades later, I cannot pull myself away from it. For me, it is home.” Here’s his insider’s guide to one of the premier jewels of the Southern California desert.

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Creating the Park

Squish, squash! Your boots sink into mud as you wade through a swamp where frogs, turtles, and fish live. Suddenly, you see a roseate spoonbill with bubblegum-pink feathers soaring overhead. Then your gaze falls upon what appear to be stones emerging from the swamp-but you know these rocks could be crocs. So you keep a safe distance at all times. This wild, watery adventure is happening on a slog-a hike through water-at Florida's Everglades National Park.

Native American people have lived in southern Florida for at least 10,000 years. But when European settlers arrived in the America Southeast, they tried to push out Native people onto small reservations in the West. That's when members of the Seminole (SEH-min-ohl) tribe moved into the swampy and mosquito-filled Everglades, which was difficult for the outsiders to explore. Formerly enslaved people and members of other tribes escaping violence also joined them there; many years later, some members of the Seminole tribe still live in the Everglades today.

But many Western settlers thought of the Everglades as nothing more than swampland, and companies began to drain the territory in the 1920s in order to construct buildings. But the National Park Service became aware of the huge numbers of animals that live, breed, and feed in the area, including manatees and types of wading birds. In order to protect the land and animals from builders, they voted to designate the Everglades as a national park in 1934.

Today Everglades National Park is a 1.5-million-acre wetland ecosystem. Much of the area is covered with saw grass, a grass-like plant that sprouts in water. The park also boasts mangrove swamps, or coastal wetlands where sturdy mangrove trees grow. Visitors to the park can boat along the wetlands, or bike through pinelands-forests that take root on rockier sections of the Everglades.

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See pictures and read about Everglades National Park on National Geographic Kids.

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Landscape Shape

A black bear lumbers around the base of a giant sequoia, a type of tree that can grow over 250 feet. Several miles away, a bobcat laps up water from at the base of the 2,425-foot-tall Yosemite Falls, the tallest waterfall in North America. Here at Yosemite National Park you can find more than 400 animal species as well as some of the biggest and tallest natural sights on Earth.

Tucked into California's Sierra Nevada mountain range, Yosemite National Park spans 1,169 square miles. In addition to sequoia trees, the area has giant granite rock formations shaped tens of thousands of years ago by moving glaciers.

One such formation is known as El Capitán (Spanish for "The Captain"), the world's largest solid block of granite. El Capitán rises some 3,000 feet and has a cliff face that's so sheer only expert climbers are allowed to scale it. Yosemite also features a 5,000-foot-tall rock called the Half Dome, which is shaped like-you guessed it!-half of a dome!

Before Yosemite was designated a national park in 1890, the Miwok (MEE-wuk) tribes were living on the land. In fact, people have been living in this region for at least 8,000 years. But the California Gold Rush in the 1840s brought settlers into conflict with the Native American residents, pushing most of these people off their homeland. Some Native people returned to live in this valley, and today seven tribes have an ancestral connection to the park's land.

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See pictures and read about Yosemite National Park on National Geographic Kids.

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Island Hopping

Waves crash against a rugged coastline, the ocean spray hitting seagulls and harbor seals perched on the rocky shore. Beyond the coast lie woods, waterfalls, and jagged mountain ridges. The area belongs to Acadia National Park. Spread across parts of Maine's northern coast, Acadia is the oldest national park in the eastern United States.

The park, which welcomes around two million visitors a year, was first established in 1919. But for thousands of years before the park's creation, the land was home to Native American tribes, including the Maliseet, Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot.

The more than 47,000-acre preserve is located mostly on Mount Desert Island, a 108-square-mile coastal island shaped like a lobster's claw. Other bits of Acadia are scattered on smaller nearby islands and on a peninsula jutting from Maine's shoreline.

Want to get around the park's islands but forgot the boat? No problem! During low tide, a mile-long gravel path is exposed between Mount Desert Island and Bar Island. Tourists can walk the rocky route to visit the Bar Island sections of Acadia before the tide rises again.

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See pictures and read about Acadia National Park on National Geographic Kids.