On Saturday April 25, 2009, students from Paragon Mills Elementary School and their families will board buses in Nashville and come to Stones River National Battlefield to celebrate Junior Ranger Day with park rangers and volunteers. While at the park, the students and their families will participate in three special programs and earn commemorative certificates, patches and pins. Each family will also receive a Passport to Your National Parks that they can use to document their visits to parks across the nation.

Lunch for the students their families will be provided thanks to the generous financial and volunteer support of Walmart, particularly Walmart Supercenter Store #5057 in Murfreesboro. Additional support for this program has been provided by Nashville Public Television and the Middle Tennessee Civil War Round Table. This event is one of four programs made possible by a $10,000 grant from the National Park Foundation through the generous support of the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund. This grant has allowed the National Park Service to embark on a series of special projects and programs designed to engage teachers, families, and community groups in using the national parks as living classrooms and to encourage the public to re-connect with their national parks.

This effort is designed to take advantage of the increased publicity expected from the September release of Ken Burns’ new film The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, a co-production of PBS/WETA and Florentine Films that creates an unprecedented opportunity to use the dynamic medium of film to reach out to young people and adults through outreach programs.