Yellowstone National Park will host a climate change educational workshop for teachers this month.
During the four-day workshop, a representative from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will explain how climate change works, and rangers will talk with teachers about where Yellowstone is seeing impacts, including increased wildfire activity and threats to pika habitat.
Katherine Chesson worked with the parks Climate Challenge, which runs similar programs in parks around the country.
“National parks are great places in which to both see the impacts and effects of climate change, and also great places to see what resource management is being done to mitigate the effects of climate change,” Chesson says.
Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash says this workshop is in line with the park’s mission.
“We need to be able to reach out to young people… to help them connect with the outdoors, to understand how it applies to their life, so that they can grow up to be great stewards of the land,” Nash says.
The teachers invited to this month’s workshop are from Montana, but lesson plans, training programs and other resources are available to all teachers on the Parks Climate Challenge website, http://parksclimatechallenge.org/.