Become a Junior Ranger

Explore, Learn, Protect! Families can purchase the full-color Junior Ranger activity book at visitor centers for $3. Visitors of any age earn a Junior Ranger patch upon completion.

NPS

 

Yellowstone National Park has a self-guided, Junior Ranger program for visiting children 4 years and older. This program is a way to introduce children—and those young at heart—to the natural wonders of the park and their own role in preserving these wonders for the future. Full-color booklets are available at park visitor centers for $3 and a patch is awarded to those who complete the requirements.

After completing the age-appropriate requirements described inside the booklet and reviewing their work with a ranger at any visitor center, participants are awarded an official Yellowstone Junior Ranger patch. Modeled after the National Park Service patch, these patches are shaped like an arrowhead and feature a geyser for 4–7 year olds, a grizzly bear for 8–12 year olds, and a bison for those 13–113 years.

 

Become a Yellowstone Junior Ranger at Home

While the park is closed, we are offering the Yellowstone Junior Ranger program booklet (7.1 MB PDF) online for you to download and complete at home. You can use the park website to help answer some of the activities. For sensory activities, you can substitute your home and yard for Yellowstone.

Please watch one of the following videos as the substitute for the ranger program:

• Experience Yellowstone
• Thermophiles
• Aquatic Ecosystems
• Water
• Bison
• The Northern Range
• Geysers
• Bats
• Watershed Down

After completing the activities and watching the video, please email us and provide the following information in the form:

• Mailing address
• Which video you watched and one thing you learned from the video
• Which patch you earned:
  • Geyser (ages 4–7)
  • Bear (ages 8-12)
  • Bison (ages 13+)

 

Patches of Yellowstone's Junior Ranger program.

NPS

Requirements include attending a ranger-led program, hiking on a park trail or boardwalk, and completing activities in the booklet to learn more about park resources, issues, and concepts such as hydrothermal geology, wildlife, and fire ecology. Both children and adults benefit by learning more about the park and sharing the fun of becoming a Junior Ranger.

 

Pick up a Junior Ranger book at a visitor center and work on it during your visit.

NPS/Jim Peaco

 

Winter Junior Rangers

If you visit Yellowstone in winter and participate in the Junior Ranger program, Winter Junior Rangers are awarded a snowflake patch. Some winter activities require the use of a thermometer and hand lens, so ask to check out a Junior Ranger snowpack. Snowpacks are available at both the Albright and Old Faithful visitor centers, and snowshoes may be checked out at the Albright Visitor Center.