Acadia Education Activities

 

Since 2017, local teachers have been working with Acadia National Park to bring students outside to their school yards and beyond. To make it easier to get kids out, teachers have written short activities and crafts. Each activity is significantly shorter than a full lesson or lesson plan and are designed to supplement or jumpstart other lessons. These can also be wonderful extensions for Acadia National Park field trips or distance learning.

Each of the activities were created for educators, by educators. Any books, materials, or links suggested in these lessons are not endorsed by the National Park Service.

 

Outdoor Ethics

Grades Pre K- 1: Leave No Trace Routines

Leave No Trace is a framework to allow students to explore the outdoors safely and respectfully. It includes 7 principles that make it easy for kids to spend time outside in a mutually sustainable way. The following activities help students explore these concepts and become experts in Leave No Trace.

Grades K-8: Acadia Outdoor Scavenger Hunts

Scavenger hunts are fun, hands on ways to explore Acadia and learn about different parts of the park. These scavenger hunts are designed in a way that can be shared with Acadia National Park Rangers, and students can print their own certificates of completion when they finish.

Grades 4-7: Compass Adventures

Students will be able to navigate through at least 5 landmarks in the outdoor campus using the directional signals of a compass rose. The affective goal of this activity is to have the students get outside and navigate through their natural world. I want them to see the importance of using a compass instead of just understanding how to read NSEW on google maps.

Grades 5-8: Easting and Northings- Mapping Investigations

This lesson builds up slowly to read Map Grid References for later learning and practice orienteering. Orienteering is a navigation and sport activity that incorporates walking or jogging, determining directions, and map reading. The object of the activity is to use a map and compass to locate specific points in each area.

History

Grades 2-4: "Historic" Journal Activity

Students will be able to make and write a journal inspired by journals from the past. Before making journals talk about the importance of journals to preserving history. Much of what we know about life in the 1800’s comes from stories and from these primary documents.

Math

Grades 4-7: Perimeter and Area Outdoors

Using this activity students will be able to understand the difference between area and perimeter. Students will identify shapes on campus and find the area and perimeter.

Grades 5-9: Proportional Triangles Outdoors

Students will be able to understand similar triangles and proportions. Students will do this through measuring a tree shadow and using their own height and shadow length to set up a proportion. By finishing the calculation, the students will find the height of the tree or building. Activity designed for grades 5-9 but can be modified higher or lower.

Literacy

Grades K-6: Flat Ranger

Inspired by books like Dale Hubert's beloved "Flat Stanley", students can write a letter to an Acadia National Park Ranger and receive a personalized response.

Grades 3-5: Poetry in Nature

Students will be able to explore and observe their outdoor space using all their senses in order to create an original work of poetry.

Science

Earth Science

Grades 2-5: Concentric Sedimentary Circles

Students will learn about sedimentary rock and the various sizes including boulder, cobble, pebble, sand, silt, and clay. They will create a temporary piece of art, based on concentric circles, using their various sizes of sedimentary rock found in nature using a geo sieve.

Grades 6-12: Acadia Rocks Story Map

George Dorr, the first superintendent of Acadia National Park, spoke of the geology of Mount Desert Island as a "striking and instructive geologic record". Indeed when we observe the geology of Downeast Maine we see a story of fire and ice. Incredible volcanism visible in the granite summits and rounded mountains and deep lakes and ponds that could only be created by multiple glaciations offer unique evidence of Acadia's geologic story.

To learn more, explore Acadia Rocks story map.

Life Science

Grades Pre K-1: Phenology Routines

The study of seasonal and cyclical changes in the natural world is called phenology. This study is important in understanding the needs of plants and animals and the ways in which they adapt to seasonal changes. Documenting the seasonal changes in the natural environment provides students with an opportunity to practice paying close attention to their surroundings.

Grades Pre K-2: Leaf Rubbings

Students can find three different leaves, use them to do a leaf rubbing and then use vocabulary words to describe those leaves.

Grades Pre K- 2: Make a Stuffed Animal Habitat

Students will make a habitat for a stuffed animal, making sure it has all that it needs to survive.

Grades Pre K-2: Make Your Own Raccoon Mask

Using a paper plate, a black crayon or marker, scissors, glue, and a popsicle stick, make your own raccoon mask.

Grades Pre K-2: Nature Imprints

Students can find three natural objects outside in their surroundings and use them to imprint in clay to create a necklace, ornament, or other art creation.

Grades K-3: Are You Wild?

Students will be able to distinguish between wild and domestic animals in this fun, quick game.

Grades K-3: Crazy Critter Craft

Students will create originally crafted animals while considering how they find what they need in their habitats.

Grades K-3: Do it Yourself- Birding Binoculars

Students practice the basic binocular use skills and learn to make easy birding observations after making these fun, simple binoculars.

Grades K-3: Fun Camouflage Vest

Adaptations are body parts and behaviors that help plants and animals survive. Camouflage, or the ability to blend in with the environment, is a type of adaptation. Color, shapes, patterns, and textures are all ways for something to camouflage. It can help prey hide from predators, and it also helps predators blend in better so prey don’t see them coming. Make your own camoflage using a paper bag!

Grades K-3: Habitat Scavenger Hunt

Walk around a safe outside space with adult supervision and make a mark every time you see an example of food, water, shelter, and space. These are what animals need in their habitats to survive. You can write in a little dot, a checkmark, or you can even draw a little picture. Hint: A shelter could be a nest or a house, but remember it could also be the area underneath a log! Try with a partner and compare what you find!

Grades K-3: Outdoor Plant Adaptation Hunt

Students will be able explore their outdoor space and identify and investigate plant adaptations.

Grades 4-6: Migration Threats Game

Through active game-play simulating migration of various animal groups, students will be able to explore and identify the impacts of various natural and human caused threats to migration.

Grades 4-8: Sound Mapping

Students can observe and map sounds outdoors using only the sense of hearing. Students can identify living and nonliving things in their environment from sounds.

Physical Science