Students are getting hands on lessons in geography, history, geology and other subjects through the efforts of Mammoth Cave National Park and our Education Matters report.

Our Laura Rodgers is back to explain how the Environmental Education Department reaches tens of thousands of kids a year.

Go with Ranger Shannon.

This is truly where we can learn the most effectively.

It's not your traditional classroom.

You have this right here.

You got the surface, but you also have the cave below.

But Mammoth Cave National Park is a treasure trove of learning.

They requested that we go as far back and look at the French and Indian War.

Jonathan Rager initially wanted to be a history teacher.

His career led him to the National Park Service, where he does teach history in a very interactive way.

It's always good to have that human history interwoven with the natural history.

When you're doing something hands on educationally, that's going to stick in your brain.

Students are able to learn about the caves, ecosystems and biodiversity.

We're actually putting meaning and we're actually putting firsthand experiences to what they've been learning about.

Forward to supplement classroom curricula.

I love to partner with them.

One at a Skaggs teaches chemistry, financial literacy and consumer math.

I like the fact that I can incorporate what they're teaching, can teach with my license.

Mammoth Cave National Park reached 70,000 kids last year on site, online and in schools.

I really love that we are able to work with one Ranger and 20 ish students in a classroom.

I think that's a really great part of the program.

Classroom visits are provided free of charge.

Field trips to the park are often covered through funds from the National Park Foundation.

They have a program called Open Outdoors for Kids.

It's a grant program, and the Friends of Mammoth Cave wrote a grant and got I think it was 89,000.

It was a little over $89,000.

So that money used to bring kids to the park.

Many of them for the very first time, surprises me when they always ask how they've come to Mammoth Cave that only five or six hands will go up.

I came here on my fourth grade field trip and fell in love with Mammoth Cave.

I thought it was amazing.

Jennifer Shackleford spent nearly a decade in public education before joining environmental education at Mammoth Cave.

Last year, we.

Worked with over 40,000 students.

In local schools.

Students getting to explore the world's longest known cave system.

You see, it's just a magical experience.

Jonathan Reiger says he hopes to help kids reestablish a connection to nature.

We are saturated in technology, but I'm hopeful that we can take a lot of modern technology and use that and pair it with the outdoor world.

There's apps that can identify plants in real time.

They're also collaborating with Alliance for a Healthier Generation.

On the Walking Classroom podcast.

They are going to work with the Education Department here probably in the next month or so, and we're going to be taping some podcasts that they have written about Mammoth Cave, and then those will be distributed to students around the nation.

It's all about bringing the classroom to Mammoth Cave or Mammoth cave to the classroom for an enriching educational experience.

It just broadens everybody's horizons to what's out there.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Laura Rogers.