Fort Macon State Park

This area of undisturbed natural beauty is the perfect place to explore salt marches and estuaries vital to the coastal ecosystem. Students can also visit the fort to learn about its historical significance to North Carolina.

http://ils.unc.edu/parkproject/visit/foma/home.html

Educational materials about Fort Macon State Park have been developed for grades 6-8 and are correlated to North Carolina’s competency-based curriculum in science, social studies, mathematics and English/language arts. The Fort Macon program introduces students to the geologic process of barrier island movement and to the plants and animals that thrive in this shifting environment. Accompanying the program is a teacher’s booklet and workshop, free of charge to educators.

Each state park and recreation area has an EELE (environmental education learning experience) curriculum guide that includes on-site activities, pre- and post-visit activities, student information pages, worksheets, fact sheets, vocabulary, and references. You can receive a free copy of an EELE by attending its corresponding workshop at a park, or you can borrow these guides through interlibrary loan at any public library in North Carolina. The EELE for Fort Macon State Park is “Barrier Beginnings” for grades 5, 6, 7, and 8.

The North Carolina State Parks website offers a search feature for finding the plants and animals that can be found at each state park. Using the drop-down menus, you can choose a park and either an amphibian, bird, reptile, mammal, fungus, insect, or vascular plant. You can search within each group by family, scientific name, or common name. There are photographs from the state parks and fun facts for some of the species.

Fort Macon is one of the finest examples of the many coastal forts constructed along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States after the War of 1812. It has seen action in the Civil War and was used as a German U-Boat coastal defense during World War II.

See also The Southern Coastal Heritage Program 2001 website Virtual Field Trip.


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