Each piece of information you have to address from the assignment (like park history, flora, fauna, etc) is its own information need and requires its own research.
Start with a broad search of your national park, then add keywords as you continue searching.
For example:
"Rocky Mountain National Park"
"Rocky Mountain National Park" AND flora
When searching Google, try these search tips for best results:
NOTE: While searching a specific domain can be helpful, remember that the domain does not determine the credibility of the information. It only tells you what kind of website it is.
When evaluating a website for credibility, evaluate the information within the site:
The National Park Service maintains a website for each of its parks. While the information they provide is comprehensive, remember to consult a variety of sources!.
For example, on the NPS site for Rocky Mountain National Park, they describe a woman named Isabella Bird. She was an early English explorer and the second woman to climb Longs' Peak. The information they provide about her will get you started, but there is so much more information about her to explore.
While Wikipedia is not an authoritative source to cite on its own, it can be a good tool to help you find more keywords and ideas related to your park. Look at the references listed, evaluate those for credibility, and determine if they meet your needs.
When you do a Google search, Google will sometimes provide an AI Overview at the top of the search results. This is a summary of multiple search results and is comprised of numerous individual sources.
The AI Overview by itself is not a source and should not be cited as such.
To evaluate information found in a Google AI Overview, click on the link icon within the overview to expand the information. It will show you a list of the individual sources that were summarized to create the AI Overview.
Evaluate each source carefully for credibility and usefulness. Generative AI (used to create AI summaries) has been known "hallucinate" - or provide incorrect or nonexistent content in response to a query. Hallucinated content can include made-up "facts," citations, code, and more.