Conservation, National Parks, & Life Outdoors: Online

LiLI.org is the gateway for Idaho residents for free access to online educational, business, and recreational tools. Among the available databases, you'll find Outdoor Idaho, which provides videos and lesson plans on Idaho outdoors, including Idaho's wildlife, wildflowers, climbing and other forms of outdoor recreation, volcanism, and more. Explora has a section devoted to national parks, including a tile for each park that lists resources (books, articles, photographs, etc.) for further exploration. And the Digital Public Library of America contains photographs, art, and historical artifacts related to national parks, conservation, and more.

Since 1916, the National Park Service has been entrusted with the care of America's national parks, which see more than 318 million visitors every year. On the NPS website, you can look up the national park you're interested in and find historical information, trip planning and tips, and links to more resources. The NPS Historic Photo Collection has more than 400,000 images of America's parks, monuments, and wild places. The NPS website also provides trip ideas--with estimated duration time of the trip, whether or not it's kid or group friendly, and what activities are involved--if you want an outdoor adventure and don't know where to start. This is a great place to visit to find out more about passes, permits, and the best way to enjoy America's national parks.

The U.S. Geological Survey, created by Congress in 1879, is a primary Federal source of science-based informaion on ecosystems, land use, energy and mineral resources, natural hazards, water use and availability, and updated maps and images of the Earth's features. On the USGS website, you can find the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, which provides updates and assessments of volcanic, hydrothermal, and earthquake activity in the Yellowstone Plateau region. The YVO also puts out a weekly column called the "Caldera Chronicles," which not only covers volcanism but also Yellowstone wildlife, geological features, history, and more.

Intermountain Histories is a free website and mobile app that curates the histories of sites and events around the Intermountain West regions of Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. Using an interactive GPS-enabled map, you can take virtual or physical walking tours of historic sites. As your personal tour guide, Intermountain Histories provides historical information, photographs and images, documentary videos, audio interviews, oral histories, bibliographic citations, and other resources as you explore. Hosted and managed by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University, the collaborative project features carefully researched histories developed by students and professors in classroom settings from universities around the Intermountain West.

One of the sections and tours on the Intermountain Histories website is "Native American Removal from National Parks," which discusses the displacement and exploitation of indigenous peoples in several locations for or related to the creation of America's national parks.