National Parks

Our nation's beautiful national parks are facing some serious issues. The National Park Systems’ 388 park areas saw a record of 286 million visitors in 1998. The enormous number of visitors and the constant threat of development present the National Parks with a variety of problems. Funding for their operation and needed renovations are bringing economic issues to the forefront.

The National Park Service has decided to publish a magazine about the national parks to help financially support them. Each issue will be about one of the national parks. Your team (the magazine staff) will write and publish an issue about a particular national park.

2. From this information, students will write a letter to a member of Congress stating why America should reinvest in their national parks.

1. In groups of three, students will choose a national park to research and produce a magazine on that particular national park. The team must agree on the style and font size and type as well as a name for their issue and the cover story.

2. Each member of the team is responsible for the following: one feature article of more than two pages, one advertisement, one activity, and one column (listed below under Magazine Staff). The group as a whole is responsible for the presentation and final product.

Editorial Columnist- needs to write the editorial column for the magazine. The editorial should address why the magazine focuses on this national park, some current issues, and news in the world that relates directly with the chosen national park.

Advice Columnist- needs to write the advice column about the national park, including: camping, the environment, hiking in the park, interacting with animals, activities in the park, mileage and directions from various major cities to the park, as well as maps.

Question and Answer Columnist- will create and answer questions in a column about the national park. Questions and answers should touch upon the geographical features, climate, geology, flora and fauna of the national park.

Feature Articles- each team member will write a feature article about the national park. Each member will be responsible for their own images, maps, graphs, and charts to accompany their article. Feature articles need to deal with the following: issues dealing with the selected national park, history of the national park, or natural features and their impact on the national park.

Advertisement and Activities- each team member will create a minimum of one advertisement to objects, places, events, etc that are appropriate for the selected national park and a minimum of one activity (i.e. experiment, puzzle, word search, etc.) related to an aspect of the national park.

Magazine Layout - the staff is responsible for making sure the magazine is uniform in layout, seeing that advertisements are appropriately placed, putting the table of contents together, composing a bibliography as well as creating an enticing cover for the magazine.

Organization……….………….. Is the information presented in a logical manner or sequence?

Completion……………………. Have you included all required information?

Quality…………………………. Neatly done? Well thought out? Attention to detail?

Creativity………………………. Presented in an interesting way? Engaging to your audience?

** Included as part of your grade will be the ability to briefly share your project with the class and answer general questions about your topics

Organization	5
Completion (Universal heading) (Required info)	60
Quality (Neatness, Spelling, etc )	10
Creativity	10
Effort	5
Bibliography	10
TOTAL	100