The Junior Ranger Program

Have you ever heard of the Junior Ranger Program? If you don't know what that is, you're not alone. So many people miss out on this cool opportunity to engage in their travel experience and learn interesting facts about the places they visit. In this post, I will be explaining about the Junior Ranger Program to you, and hopefully this will inspire you to try and become a Junior Ranger yourself!

  The Junior Ranger Program is a program at most of the US National Parks and other locations falling under the National Park system. Here is a list of all the National Parks with Junior Ranger Programs: https://www.nps.gov/kids/parks-with-junior-ranger-programs.htm 

    To become a Junior Ranger, you must fill out a booklet using information you learn about the park. Depending on your age, there are a certain number of activities that you need to complete. Some activities might need you to attend a Park Ranger led program or watch some of the exhibits at a visitor center or hike a trail, but the goal of the activities is to make sure you enjoy your visit and learn something nice and important that you can hold on to as a memory of your visit to a National park. Once you complete the Jr Ranger Book, you stop by at a Visitor Center and a park ranger will usually go over the book, chat with you about your experience in the park before holding a swearing in ceremony (some rangers might just say Good job whereas some of the rangers do it in a fun and enjoyable manner) and then you receive a really cool official badge. Some National park websites have a downloadable copy available online which I sometimes print out and start working on during our road trips. That way I get an idea of what the visit will be like or I get to know what activities or sights I need to look out for when we arrive. At a few locations like Yellowstone NP, you might have to buy the Jr Ranger book for small fee. 

Here is some additional information about the program directly from the National Park Service website.

    "Interested youth complete a series of activities during a park visit, share their answers with a park ranger, and receive an official Junior Ranger patch and Junior Ranger certificate. Junior Rangers are typically between the ages of 5 to 13, although people of all ages can participate." (https://www.nps.gov/kids/become-a-junior-ranger.htm). 

Most Jr Ranger Badges are made of wood nowadays and might look like this:

Image Courtesy: NPS

Some of the badges in my collection are made of plastic and there are a few which are patches like this cool one from Yellowstone National Park. What is cool about this program is that at times if they run out of badges, they will make sure to mail you one if you leave your mailing address with them. If you happen to visit a National park but are unable to stop by at a Visitor center to collect your badge, you can mail in the completed booklet and they will mail your badge to you.

If any National Park/Monument/Recreation Area is celebrating a milestone anniversary in the National Park system, they might handout additional badges or patches. Like all these badges and patches I collected when visiting the Sleeping Bear Dune National Recreation Area in Michigan in the summer of 2020.

If you are a regular visitor to National Parks, you might know about the National Park Passport where you can affix Cancellation stamps for each National park location you visit. Junior ranger program has its own passport and most National parks also have a Junior ranger stamp that you can collect.

According to the National Park Website, there are currently over 200 junior ranger programs, so you can become a junior ranger in many different parks! There are also some Jr Ranger programs not related to a park such as the Jr Ranger Cave Scientist or Jr Ranger Space Explorer.

I think this is such an awesome program because, by making you do activities or participate in programs, they make sure you notice and appreciate everything around you and you get rewarded with a cool badge that can be a souvenir of a memorable trip. Overall, I would definitely recommend becoming a junior ranger. It's a very cool experience, and if you haven't tried it before, go try it!