By McClatchy News Service
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama announced a new program to provide all fourth-grade students and their families free admission to national parks and federal lands for a full year.
The Every Kid in a Park program, designed to get schoolchildren outdoors, will start this fall to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the National Parks Service.
In addition, the National Park Foundation will dole out transportation grants for children to visit parks, public lands and waters.
“We want every fourth-grader to have the experience of getting out and discovering America,” Obama said at Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy in Chicago.
“We want them to see the outside of a classroom, too; see all the places that make America great.
“Put down the smartphone for a second. Put away the video games. Breathe in some fresh air and see this incredible bounty that’s been given to us.”
$80 value
Family admission to national parks usually costs $80 for an annual pass.
Obama uneviled the Every Kid in a Park program on the same day he designated three new national monuments — in Illinois, Colorado and Hawaii.
While visiting Chicago Thursday, he designated the Pullman neighborhood on the city’s south side a national monument for its significance in labor and civil rights movements.
The other two sites are Browns Canyon in Colorado and a former World War II Japanese-American internment camp site in Hawaii.
