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Wind Cave National ParkAlvin McDonald
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Wind Cave National Park
Caving For Kids
You can make your own headlamp.

Materials Needed to make a headlamp:

  • 2 sheets of construction paper (yellow & color of your choice)
  • scissors
  • ruler
  • glue

Instructions:

  1. Using yellow construction paper cut out one circle that is 2 inches wide.
  2. Using a different color of construction paper, cut out 3 strips that are 12 inches long by 2 inches wide.
  3. Glue two of the strips together so they form a circle. This part will fit around your forehead.
  4. Lay the circle on its edge and glue the third strip across the circle to form an arch. This part will go across the top of your head.
  5. Finally, take the yellow circle and glue it to the front of your paper headlamp.

 

  

 
Use a box to make a cave in your house.

Building and Exploring Caves in Your House

  • By adding other items to furniture in your house like chairs, blankets and cardboard boxes, you can build a cave of your own. Use chairs to make the tight crawl spaces that explorers sometimes find. Use blankets or sheets to make the cave dark or make a big room called a cavern. Use cardboard boxes to extend your cave from under tables or chairs. Look to see if you can find a cave under your bed!

 

  • Use bells tied to string and hang them at different lengths in your cave to represent the different passageways that explores go through when they are exploring. Explorers try to “cave softly” by not damaging formations. If you ring the bells, you’ve gotten too close to the formations.

 

  • Decorate your cave with cave formations called speleothems. Click here to print out some speleothems, color them and hang them in your cave. But be careful not to touch them while you are exploring!
boxwork  

Did You Know?
Wind Cave is one of the longest caves in the world and has an amazing amount of a rare cave formation called boxwork.
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Last Updated: November 16, 2008 at 16:58 EST