Plants, Animals, and Water
The scientific name for a creature's ability to produce light with their bodies
What is bioluminescence?
Name of the rock formations that grow upward from the cave floor in Mammoth Cave.
What is Stalagmites? Stalactites hang "tight" to the cave ceiling and grow downward while Stalagmites, which grow upward, "might" reach the ceiling someday, grow upward.
What is the 1880s.Today's visitors to the park can explore the site of the twenty-sixth president's ranch and tour a cabin he once lived in.
Of the five national parks in Utah, this one was designated first.
What is Zion National Park? Zion was the first established in 1919, Bryce Canyon followed in 1928, then came Canyonlands (1964), Arches (November 1971), and Capitol Reef (December 1971).
River responsible for carving Zion Canyon
What is the Virgin River? Both the North and East Forks of the river run through the park.
The number of peaks within the 40-mile-long Teton range that reach 12,000 feet or more.
What is eight. The tallest is Grand Teton at 13,775 feet. There are another 26 peaks in the range that hit 11,000 feet.
The insect that citizen scientists (aka laypeople) volunteer to count annually in Yosemite National Park.
What is butterflies? The count happens every summer in the Tuolumne Meadows area of the park. To date more than 100 different species have been spotted in the park.
Name the indigenous nation that sits just outside Glacier National Park's eastern border and was originally given the rights to most of northern Montana.
What is Blackfeet Nation? The 1855 treaty between the Blackfeet and the US gave them the rights to a large portion of Montana--including lands that were eventually stolen from them again in order to establish Glacier as a national park.
The number of interconnected falls that make up Yosemite Falls.
What is three? Upper Yosemite Falls, the middle cascades, and Lower Yosemite falls.
Most of the developed areas of Yellowstone National Park sit within a ___________ the size of Rhode Island.
What is a Volcanic caldera. It was formed by an eruption around 640,000 years ago and is so large that there is nowhere you can stand to take in its entirety.
The most visited National Park at 13 million visitors per year.
What is Great Smoky Mountains National Park? At 13 million visitors per year, has nearly twice the number of visitors to the Grand Canyon. And there's no entrance fee!
The number of states in the continental US that the Rocky Mountains pass through?
What is six states? Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico.
The two creatures that come together to form the brightly colored (yet fragile) lichen that cover many rocky surfaces in Acadia National Park.
What is What is Algae and fungi. Acadia is one of the most lichen-diverse parks in the system. Not only or lichen beautiful, they are also important natural pollution monitors since they absorb gasses directly from the air.
What is Hematite? This iron mineral, also known as rust, gives the red rocks of Utah (and Mars!) their coloring.
The engineering marvel that connects the east side of Zion National Park with Zion Canyon and nearby Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon National Parks.
What is a tunnel? Specifically, the Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel.
Who is Dred Scott? Though ultimately unsuccessful, the suit helped hasten the oncoming Civil War, which eventually did lead to freedom for those who had been enslaved.
What is the Laramide Orogeny. Roughly 70 to 40 million years ago, the Farallon Plate slid under the North American Plate, wrinkling the crust like a very large spatula scrunching up a pancake, and pushed the modern Rockies skyward.
This National Park was the last territory to be mapped in the contiguous US.
During World War II, this national park was used by the federal government as a training location for the ski soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division.
What is Mount Rainier National Park. A video, which shows the soldiers training, can be seen online.