Experience the Smokies at home
It’s National Park Week, and a new website from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park featuring videos and activities for students of all ages will help families celebrate despite the park’s coronavirus-induced closure.
The website, www.smokieees.org, is home to SmokiEEEs @ Home and highlights the three “E’s” in SmokiEEEs — Explore, Entertain and Escape. “Explore” gets kids outside making discoveries in their own neighborhood, “Entertain” offers fun, creative ways for kids to open their eyes and ears to nature while celebrating the Smokies and the art it inspires; and “Escape” provides a virtual escape to the Smokies for a quiet, captivating moment.
Parent resources and original video content provide families an opportunity to take ranger-led “Parks as Classrooms” virtual field trips along with adventures led by Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont and Discover Life in America staff that includes backyard citizen-science activities. Educators with each organization are working on new videos and grade-level activities to add to the website on a regular basis. The Great Smoky Mountains Association and Friends of the Smokies also contributed to the effort.
During National Park week, more online activities are available at www.nps.gov/subjects/npscelebrates/find-your-virtual-park.htm.
For a limited time, a park ranger emoji will appear with the use of the hashtags #NationalParkWeek and #FindYourPark on social media, in addition to #FindYourVirtualPark and #EncuentraTuParque on Twitter.
