The Junior Ranger Program, in brief, is a program where kids (and adults) can learn about a park through self guided interactive activities, such as scavenger hunts, crosswords, and even poetry writing. After completing the specified amount of pages, depending on the participants age, the participant is awarded a patch, badge and/or certificate, unique to each park.
Generally participants can pick up activity books, which are generally free, but in a few cases can cost up to $3, at a park’s visitor center or a ranger station. The activity books direct participants to areas they might otherwise miss, and/or hidden gems. The booklets contain information that helps participants discover the importance of a park on their own terms, and decide what the park means to them personally.
Yosemite National Park was the first to start the Junior Ranger program back in the early 1930s.
Since then it has spread to almost all the 423 national park sites and across some of our public lands from the Bureau of Land Management, to National wildlife refuges, to the Army Corps of engineers.
Some parks or groups of parks offer specialty badges or patches and a certificate signed by a ranger. For example, select participating parks now offer a Junior Civil War Historian badge for participants who complete three activities—either junior ranger books at three parks or junior ranger books at two parks and one online activity. Select participating parks offer a Junior Paleontologist program. Some sites also offer additional patches for older participants. Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument offers both a Junior Ranger patch and a Desert Ranger patch for older participants. Guadalupe Mountains National Park offers a Junior Ranger patch, a Senior Ranger patch and a Wilderness Explorer patch. Bandelier National Monument offers four different patches based on age groups. The parks either offer different books for different age groups or a single book that requires a different number of activities be completed based on the child's age. Often the activities are coded with a visual clue on which activities are appropriate for a particular age group. Parks may post their books on line so they can be printed out ahead of time, such as this one from Harper's Ferry National Historic Park.
Some parks offer completion of their Junior Ranger programs by mail. You can download and print the book at home and mail it in once it's been completed. These are primarily offered at sites that are more remote and offer children the opportunity to learn about that location even though they can't actually visit in person.
Some badges are event specific and can only be earned during certain periods and only by those actually attending the event.
Other badges can be earned totally on line when a particular site is closed for an extended period of time.
There is also a new (as of 2019) Junior Ranger Passport Stamp program. The program is voluntary for the parks, but the stamps were sent out to parks with Junior Ranger programs. There may also be some parks with Junior Ranger cancellations that are not on the published list.[1]
Nearly all of the 424 national park sites participate in the program along with many National Wildlife Refuges, Bureau of Land Management, Army Corps of engineers, most state parks, and some county parks.
There are many resources from lists to maps to help people visualize and see which parks participate in this program. One of the most complete resources is the map linked below to see exactly who has the program. https://tiny.one/Junior-ranger-map
| KY | Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Park | Booklet | Badge | Yes | ||
| IN | Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial | Booklet must be picked up on site | Badge | No | ||
| GA | Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area | Booklet | Badge | Yes | ||
| District of Columbia | United States Navy Memorial | Booklet | Badge | email only | ||
| VA | Historic Jamestown- Colonial National Historical Park | Booklet must be picked up on site | Badge | No |
| U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management | Wilderness Explorer Junior Ranger Activity Book | |||
| National Park Service | International Cooperation World Heritage Junior Ranger | |||
| National Park Service | Underwater Explorer Junior Ranger |
Additionally, individual State Parks around the United States of America now offer Junior Ranger programs modeled after the National Park Service program.