CRATERS of the MOON National Monument & Preserve

Spring and Fall Visits: April 24 - May 26 and Sept. 11 — Oct.13 We are now accepting reservations for 2006 school visits to Craters of the Moon. Registration guarantees you an orientation and an educational fee waiver for your visit. Call the park at (208) 527-3257 to make a reservation. Craters of the Moon has been accepted into the Hands on the Land Network, a virtual network of federal land management organizations that provide educational services. Along with membership in the network, we have also received a grant that will help us to retain a park educator to provide educational services this coming spring and fall. For more information and to view teaching resources available from the Hands on the Land Network visit their website at: www.handsontheland.org
SnowSchool: Wednesdays & Thursdays in Jan. and Feb. We are also now accepting reservations for winter visits to Craters of the Moon. Bring your students to Craters for a mini winter ecology lesson including a 1 mile ranger led snowshoe trek near the Visitor Center. We have enough snowshoes for about 30 students and the walks are suitable for fourth graders and up. Call the park at (208) 527-3257 for more information or to schedule a class visit. After registering for a SnowSchool visit we will provide you with detailed information on what to wear and bring. In preparation for your visit attendance at the SnowSchool Educators' Workshop listed below is highly recommended. Snowshoes have been provided for student use through a generous donation from the Winter Wildlands Alliance. For more information about SnowSchools including winter oriented lesson plans and snow science activities visit the SnowSchool website at: www.snowschool.org
Educators' Workshops: Jan. 6-7(SnowSchool), April 28-29, Aug. 25-26 During these 2 day workshops strategies for incorporating aspects of local geology and life sciences into the classroom are explored in our on-site auditorium and in the field. College credit is available for teachers through the Sawtooth Science Institute (SSI). For more information contact SSI at 208-788-9686 or visit their website at: imnh.isu.edu/ssi

Over the past decade, the staff at Craters of the Moon has worked hard to encourage school groups to utilize the Monument as the tremendous educational resource we know it to be. During this time, we developed elementary through high school curriculums, made resource trunks available, greatly expanded the amount of information available on our website, sponsored teacher workshops, formed a partnership with the Sawtooth Science Institute to hold accredited Workshops and Seminars, and presented many hundreds of orientations for visiting students.

During this same period, we saw the number of school groups visiting the Monument each year rise from approximately 30 to 90 and watched the number of visiting students rise from much less than 2,000 to nearly 6,500. These numbers indicate that our goal to promote the use of the Monument for educational purposes is being achieved. But with this success, we also identified problems that were weakening our educational program. Our primary concerns were a decrease in the quality of the educational experience because of the huge size of some school groups, the attendant adverse impacts on the natural resources we are responsible for protecting, and for the safety of the students.

Our response has involved a continual readjustment of our program to address these concerns and better meet the needs of visiting schools. This year's policy is as follows:

Reservations, Orientations, and Fee Waivers:

See current schedule for available dates. These dates have been selected to coincide with the normal opening of the loop drive and trails through the monument as well as periods when adequate staffing is available at the monument to assist school groups. Registration guarantees you an orientation and an educational fee waiver for your visit.

Unfortunately groups that do not abide by park regulations established to protect fragile park resources are often the same groups that did not attend an orientation. We have also found that groups who have not been exposed to certain safety messages tend to have a higher frequency of student accidents. We provide safety and resource protection messages at all orientations and our goal is to have every school group obtain a reservation and receive an orientation. Therefore, we will not be issuing educational fee waivers to any school group that has not made a reservation and agreed to attend an orientation. For those groups who choose to visit the monument without securing a fee waiver or attending an orientation, the standard entrance fees will be charged.

Limitation on group size:

In order to help us protect park resources, we strongly recommend that groups be limited to 50 students per park site at any one time. We feel that larger groups are difficult to instruct in the confined viewing areas and along narrow trails common to most of our outdoor sites. Large groups also have difficulty staying on the trials and within defined viewpoints. Stepping onto the fragile lava surface can result in noticeable impacts to crucial resources. Large groups also present special safety concerns at certain sites and exceed the fire safety capacity of our visitor center.

Limitation on the number of students visiting the monument on the same day:

We will provide educational services for approximately 150 students per day at the Monument. With most groups arriving at nearly the same time, we are trying to eliminate the conflicts between groups competing to utilize the same park sites. It is also a safety concern in that we need to maintain a level of visitation consistent with our ability to respond to an emergency.

Requirement of adequate supervision:

Schools should provide at least one adult (teacher or parent) to supervise for each 10 students that they bring. Educational, resource, and safety concerns are all served by providing good supervision.

Closure of caves when unsafe:

Slippery ice and deep snow particularly at cave entrances can make for unsafe conditions in April and May. When determined to be unsafe, the cave area will be closed to all visitors. Teachers are encouraged to inquire about the current status of the caves prior to their visit.

Broken Top Loop Trail:

This 1.8-mile trail provides students with an opportunity to see excellent examples of volcanic geology, all of the basic plant communities, overviews of major geologic events, and the inside of a lava tube. A Teacher's Guide has been developed for this trail and is available on our expanded webpage. We think the Broken Top Loop Trail provides the very best educational experience possible within the Monument.

Help us help you:

One of the highest priorities at Craters of the Moon is to provide a quality educational experience for visiting school groups. We feel this can best be achieved through a cooperative effort that allows our staff and visiting teachers to work together. We encourage all teachers to contact us and discuss how we can most effectively accomplish this goal. If you have any questions, please contact Doug Owen or Ted Stout at 208-527-3257.