Project overview: Inspire the future stewards of Yosemite by supporting the park’s Education team in creating a series of educational videos for fourth through sixth graders and offering a virtual toolkit for educators to teach students about the National Park Service.

How your support helps: Spending time outside has well-documented benefits for kids, from improving physical health to sparking creativity and reducing stress levels. And yet, growing up in the 21st century has become a primarily indoor activity for many children. Many educators and naturalists are looking for effective ways to engage this increasingly online audience with the outdoors, and this year, the Yosemite National Park Education Team is creating a tool to facilitate these park connections. 

Building on the popularity of Yosemite Nature Notes — a long-running video series that tells unique stories about the natural and human history of Yosemite National Park — the park’s Education Team plans to create a similar series of educational videos geared towards fourth through sixth graders. Each video will implement effective teaching strategies, be available on a variety of online platforms, and be supplemented by standards-based curriculum and activities in a virtual toolkit for educators. 

The Teaching Yosemite videos and toolkit will not only help virtually teach and inspire future stewards of Yosemite, but also allow the Education Team to have a greater reach with a smaller staff than in previous years and to refer age-appropriate video materials to educators across the country. 

This year:In 2026, the park’s Education Team will create the Teaching Yosemite video series and educator toolkit to provide asynchronous content for students and educators and to provide families with another way to learn about the park. With your support, these videos will garner more than 1.3 million views on the park’s social platforms, and the toolkit will be open and accessible to all teachers via the National Park Service’s website.

Project partner: Yosemite National Park