Mammoth Cave Mobile

SUBJECTS: Science, Math, Language Arts, and Art

GRADES: K-3

KERA GOALS: Meets KERA goals 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6.

ACADEMIC EXPECTATIONS: visualizing; writing; visual arts; space and dimensionality; resourcefulness and creativity; decision making; and expanding existing knowledge.

DURATION: One 30-40 minute period

GROUP SIZE: One classroom of students (1-35)

SETTING: Indoors or outdoors at tables

KEY VOCABULARY: Mammoth Cave National Park, plants, animals, people, rocks

ANTICIPATORY SET: “Does anyone remember what it takes to make a national park?”

OBJECTIVES: The students will be able to: 1. identify the components of a national park and relate them to Mammoth Cave National Park; 2. match pictures with their appropriate titles.

MATERIALS: Each student will need:

• 2 drinking straws (or sticks)
• 6 twelve-inch pieces of string
• a piece of tape,
• a Mammoth Cave Mobile Sheet
• hole punch
• scissors
• crayons
• pencil
• one National Park Service symbol square

BACKGROUND: National parks are established to protect the resources found within their boundaries. These resources include plants, animals, rocks and the land, and people. People include visitors and the people that are important in the parks’ history. Each park has significant resources that have helped to establish it as a national park.

Mammoth Cave National Park is important because of its diversity of life on the surface and underground. Some of the plants in the park include trees such as oaks, hickories, tulip poplars, and sycamores. Shrubs commonly found in the park include papaws and the spice bush. Common wild flowers include thistle, bluets, jack-in-the-pulpit, and bloodroot. The animal population is also very diverse. It includes animals such as bats, squirrels, deer, raccoons, opossums, chipmunks and many birds, including wild turkeys. The main rocks found in the park are limestone, sandstone, shale, and gypsum. Some of the people at Mammoth Cave National Park include rangers, visitors, explorers, guides, miners, and prehistoric Indians. These are just a few examples of the many resources in the park that help to make it unique. The most important link that ties them all together would be water-- the Green River on the surface and the groundwater at work in the cave. For more examples or information on these resources, feel free to contact the Environmental Education Coordinator at the park.

PROCEDURE: (graphics may be found on pdf version)

1. The teacher asks the students to recall what makes national parks important. The teacher writes the categories plants, animals, rocks, and people on the blackboard.
2. The teacher asks the students to think of a few animals that might be found in Mammoth Cave National Park. The teacher writes their answers under “animals,” then does the same thing for each of the remaining categories. The teacher may need to tell the students answers for some of the categories. (It is best to use the answers from the mobile sheet as examples.)
3. The teacher passes out the mobile sheets to the students. They read the directions together. The students need to fill in the blanks on their sheets.
4. . The teacher passes out the other supplies that are needed for the project. Directions: The students can color their squares and begin to assemble their mobiles. The two straws are crossed in the center and taped together. Glue or tape two pictures from the same category back-to-back. Hang a different category square to each end of a straw. To hang squares, punch a hole in each card so the string can be tied through it (or the string can be taped on). Hang the National Park Service symbol square from the center of the crossed straws.
5. The final step is to hang the mobile in your classroom to decorate the room.

CLOSURE: Today we talked about some of the things that make Mammoth Cave National Park important. As we continue to study about Mammoth Cave National Park we will learn more and more about what makes it very special.

EVALUATION: The teacher is able to evaluate the students by seeing how they label the parts of their mobile.

EXTENSIONS:

1. Instead of using our mobile sheet, have the students draw pictures of plants, animals, rocks, and people that make Mammoth Cave National Park a special place.
2. Make one large classroom mobile with students’ drawings of the many different resources found in Mammoth Cave National Park. The class could have more than one of each item under each category.
3. Make a class field guide that has pictures/drawings and names of the plants, animals, rocks and people that might be found in Mammoth Cave National Park. The students could pick just one category or they could do all four. They could be put together in a book to be used during a visit to the park.