🇺🇸 WEEKLY AMERICAN HERITAGE: Haleakalā National Park

(Explore the history and landscape of the United States as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of American Independence. Get out your atlas and almanac and follow along!)

Hawaii is our homeschool state-of-the-week, so why not spend a few minutes today with your students learning about one of Hawaii’s most important natural and historical places: Haleakala National Park, which protects and interprets the volcanic landscape and the highly distinctive flora and fauna of the island of Maui.

“Isolated in the mid Pacific, the Hawaiian Islands are the most remote major island group on Earth. They were formed as the Pacific Plate moved across a volcanic ‘hot spot’ within the earth’s mantle. Lying 2,400 miles (3,862 km) from the nearest continent, they have never had connection to any other land mass.”

Natural crossings across this great expanse of ocean by animals and plants were extremely rare and very surprising occasions. After such accidental arrivals, and isolated from mainland populations, these pioneer organisms took strange courses of evolution and allowed a unique biota to develop.

Unaccustomed to mainland competition, however, these remote native island ecosystems are defenseless against mainland alien species, and have been decimated by new grazers, predators and diseases.

Haleakalā National Park, and its East Maui Watershed Partner neighbors, still harbor an astonishing relict of these native island ecosystems. The major effort of Haleakalā’s resource stewardship is to preserve intact this superb example of the Hawaiian Islands’ native ecosystems. (nps.gov)

You can find a wealth of additional information about this park’s history, landscape, location(s), and visitor facilities on the webpage for Haleakala National Park from the National Park Service, and also on the park’s page on Wikipedia.

Explore America’s National Parks, National Historical Parks, National Historic Sites, National Monuments, and more via Wikipedia and via the U.S. National Park Service’s website today.

What American treasures are you and your students exploring in your homeschool this Hercules Term? 🇺🇸

❡ The great globe itself: This is one of our regular Homeschool Geography posts featuring important natural and historical sites in the United States. Print your own copy of our River Houses American Heritage Calendar and follow along with us, and add your name to our weekly mailing list to get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🌎

❡ We set to-day a votive stone: If you want a great long-term history and geography project for your homeschool, explore the Historical Marker Database online (hmdb.org) and make a plan to find all the markers that are listed in your local area. Add any new ones you know of that are missing, and add new photos or descriptions for the ones already included. Your students will gain a better appreciation for your local community and will learn a wealth of new information about history and geography. 🏛️

❡ Print this little lesson: Down at the bottom of this post you’ll find a special “Print” button that will let you create a neat and easy-to-read copy of this little lesson, and it will even let you edit and delete sections you don’t want or need (such as individual images or footnotes). Give it a try today! 🖨️

❡ Books in the running brooks: You can always turn to your River Houses atlas and almanac for more information about any of our homeschool states-of-the-week. The almanac has detailed profiles of all the U.S. states and territories, and the endpapers of the atlas are indexes that will show you where all of the individual national and regional maps may be found. 📚

❡ Homeschool calendars: We have a whole collection of free, printable, educational homeschool calendars and planners available on our main River Houses calendar page. They will help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. Give them a try today! 🗓️

❡ Support our work: If you enjoy our educational materials, please support us by starting your regular Amazon shopping from our very own homeschool teaching supplies page. When you click through from our page, any purchase you make earns us a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for helping us to keep going and growing! 🛒