Non-fiction reading is an essential skill, but some children (and adults!) think it's not for them. We've developed a reading unit based around a National Parks roadtrip of the Western United States. Student pairs decide on parks to visit and read about their history, resources, and challenges. Through core and extension readings, they learn non-fiction text structures like compare and contrast, cause and effect, and problem/solution. Along the way, they experience road hazards and the incredible natural wonders of the National Parks. The road trip framework adds math and geography skills to the unit; the National Parks' landforms connect to our Earth Science curriculum. This unit also includes writing connections as they report out from the parks in both postcards and research reports. We work on problem solving environmental, historical, and accessibility issues as we explore our parks. We also highlight the role of many of these parks and landforms for indigenous communities. 

This money raised pays for maps for student road trip pairs, wall maps for classrooms, books on each of the national parks, National Park stickers as students meet challenges and learn about parks, lanyards for the passes that students receive at the end, and National Parks postcards for student writing connections. Thank you for your support!

UPDATE: Your swift support of this project is overwhelming! We increased the goal so if we are able to raise the funds, we can buy additional nonfiction books beyond the ones about parks to improve our nonfiction libraries of real life books (as opposed to digital books). Topics like camping/wilderness skills, animals, physical features, etc.