National Parks by National Geographic

National Parks by National Geographic contains information and maps of the national parks in the United States. When launching the app, users can select one of the 27 parks indexed in the app. Once a park is selected, users automatically view the park’s guide, which includes the park’s stats (e.g., the number of individuals who visited the park during the prior year and park size), pictures of the park, and other information (e.g., contact information and camping and lodging). Users can then select the “map” option from the top, and they will see points of interest pinned to a map of the park. Additional features in the National Parks app can be accessed by tapping the “lined” button on the top left of the screen. Here, users can select to view photos archived by National Geographic or submitted by park visitors, create itineraries for future trips, read recent park news, or browse the editor’s pick of park attractions.

Instructional Ideas

1. Teachers can assign students a national park as a research topic. Students can use this app to study the park and brainstorm key ideas to include in their research. The research can be presented using Educreation, iMovie, or Book Creator Free.
2. Students can use this app as part of a “Which National Park Am I?” activity. To do so, teachers must give students time to explore the different parks listed in this app and pick one. Next, students write 10 or more hints about which parked they selected, and all the hints must be based in this app. Hints can be information about the park’s visitors per year, points of interest, and geographical features, among others. Lastly, teachers can call on a student, and the student must then read his or her list of hints until a classmate guesses the park.
3. Teachers can have students pretend that they are going to visit a national park and have them create an itinerary for their visit. Students would then plan their trip using the “itinerary” feature in this app. To add a twist, teachers can have students journal about the different items on their itinerary. The journal can be about an imaginative visit to a point of interest or a rationale for why they selected that point of interest. To help them see points of interest, teachers can have students search from them using the Google Earth app.
4. To build students’ summary-writing skills, teachers can have students read the “news” feature in this app. Students would then read a news article and write a summary of the article. The summary could be written in Quick Office, WPS Office, or Hanx Writer. Students could then save their summary to that app or copy and paste their summary to the “post a comment” section that follows the news article.

Screenshots

Screenshots