Celebrate Kids to Parks Day at Channel Islands National Park

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Date: May 11, 2015
Contact: Yvonne Menard, 805-658-5725

This Saturday, May 16, 2015, Channel Islands National Park will celebrate Kids to Parks Day, a national day of outdoor play created by the National Park Trust, with a series of special programs.

The Kids to Parks Day event is designed to encourage kids to discover local outdoor spaces and learn more about nature, history, and science in their neighborhood. More than 1,500 events, involving free resources and activities for kids and families, will be taking place across the country.

The event at Channel Islands National Park will include educational programs and activities and an opportunity for kids to become Junior Rangers. It will be held from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm at the Robert J. Lagomarsino Visitor Center in Ventura Harbor.

At 11:00 am and 3:00 pm, kids can join a park ranger for a tidepool talk to learn about the marine species that populate the park waters. At 1:00 pm, a park ranger will host a pinniped program in which kids dress up as seals and sea lions to learn about how these animals adapt to living in the ocean environment.

Ten-year-old Tigran Nahabedian, who was sworn in as the park's first Junior Ranger Underwater Explorer and has collected over 45 Junior Ranger badges, will be hosting a Junior Ranger Station to lead kids through the steps to become a Channel Islands Junior Ranger, a Junior Ranger Underwater Explorer, or a Junior Paleontologist. These activity-based programs give kids a chance to explore, learn about, and protect our national parks.

Besides these scheduled events, a fish printing art activity and a button making station will be available all day, as well as regular showings of the park film, "Treasure in the Sea." Visitors will be encouraged to explore the new interactive ocean exhibit in the lookout tower.

The Kids to Parks Day event is part of the Find Your Park initiative to celebrate the milestone centennial anniversary of the National Park Service in 2016. This initiative encourages the public to find their park and share their stories online, emphasizing that a national park can be more than a place–it can encompass a feeling, a state of mind, or a sense of American pride.

Saturday's event is also aligned with the Every Kid in a Park initiative launched by President Obama, which provides all fourth-grade students and their families with free admission to all National Parks and federal lands and waters for the 2015-2016 school year.

Learn more about Find Your Park at: http://findyourpark.com.

Learn more about Every Kid in a Park and ways kids, families, and schools can get involved:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/02/19/let-s-get-every-kid-park.

For information about Kids to Parks Day visit:
http://parktrust.org/youthprograms/national-kids-to-parks-day



Last updated: May 12, 2015

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