The Junior Ranger program at Georgia State Parks offers families an opportunity to combine fun outdoors with learning. The program features activities specific to the 59 state parks and historic sites in Georgia. The program is written at a third-grade level but everyone in the family is welcome to participate and become Junior Rangers.
To get started, stop by a Georgia state park or historical site and ask for that site’s Junior Range book. Each activity book contains fun missions for your family to complete while enjoying the outdoors and learning about Georgia history. Program participants earn a collectible badge after completing each book. To be awarded a badge for a completed site-specific book and be sworn in as an official Junior Ranger, program participants can take their completed book to the site’s office. Junior Rangers also can earn up to five embroidered stickers for activities such as fishing, camping, biking and volunteering.
FDR State Park in Pine Mountain, the Little White House Historic Site in Warms Springs and Chattahoochee Bend State Park in Newnan are some of the locations convenient to the Chattahoochee Valley where families can enjoy participating in the Junior Ranger Program.
- FDR State Park, located in Pine Mountain, has 40 miles of hiking trails, including the 23-mile Pine Mountain trail. Other activities available include camping, fishing, boat rentals and horseback riding.
- Chattahoochee Bend State Park, located in northwest Coweta County, offers camping, fishing, hiking and kayak and canoe rental. Some of the campsites are “paddle in.”
- The Little White House Historic Site, located in Warm Springs, is a National Historic Landmark. The Little White House was built by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932. Visitors to the historic site can tour FDR’s home, which has been preserved and is very close to the condition he left it in when he passed away in 1945.
For more info on the Junior Ranger program:gastateparks.org/EducationalResources
For more info on Georgia State Parks and Historic Sites, including how to make reservations: gastateparks.org
