At-Home Learning

Keep Austin Beautiful encourages you to clean, beautify, and educate right where you are!

During this ever-changing time, we understand the need for continued environmental learning, awareness, and action. The Keep Austin Beautiful team has adapted our education programming to accommodate out-of-school settings, multi-age levels, and group sizes to provide fun and engaging activities for every student and adult to enjoy.

We will update this page as new resources – videos, lesson plans, and activities – become available. Sign up here to receive our special At-Home Learning updates and announcements.

Keep Austin Beautiful is offering another amazing year of engaging, TEKS-aligned environmental science education programming FREE of charge. Starting this fall, we will be offering our programs as virtual live presentations with an adaptable and flexible structure to meet your curricular needs and integrate with your online platforms.

If you are interested in incorporating our programs into your plans for this school year,  please be sure to register now. We understand it may be difficult to make a firm commitment, however, please provide your best estimate and we can finalize scheduling at a later date. We will be in contact throughout the semester to adjust as needed.  Let us know if you have any questions!

Clean Creek Campus
Keep Austin Beautiful leads engaging science-based activities for 3^rd-8^th graders to connect in-school learning to local environmental issues and solutions, with a focus on protecting water quality. Participating schools will receive two virtual “in-class” presentations, followed by a virtual field trip and instruction for local service project opportunities. The virtual field activities will emphasize creek restoration and clean water quality, including activities such as litter cleanup, seedball making, macroinvertebrate investigation, native vs invasive plant exploration, and scavenger hunt, depending on student and teacher interest.

All Clean Creek Campus programming is provided free of charge.

Generation Zero
Generation Zero Waste is a free youth education program, created in partnership with Austin Resource Recovery. The program engages K-12 students in TEKS-aligned educational and interactive activities which raise awareness about recycling, composting, and conservation while giving students simple solutions for reducing their waste. The curriculum is divided into grade levels – K-2^nd, 3^rd-5^th, 6^th-8^th and 9^th-12^th – with a different focus for each.

• K-2^nd: lessons focus on teaching students about sorting waste, emphasizing the differences between landfill trash, recycling, and composting
• 3^rd-5^th:  lessons center around the composition of trash and recycling beyond the basics, integrating math and social studies concepts.
• 6^th-12^th:  lessons explore the intricacies of our waste streams, to build a complex understanding of landfills and recycling systems, culminating with a student-led advocacy project to address waste issues locally

All Generation Zero programming is provided free of charge.

Here you will find a collection of free resources available for you to use in your own space and with your own materials. These lessons are TEKS-aligned and have been adapted specifically for you to engage your youth right at home or in your own backyard!

Interested in a different topic? While our Activity Kits are currently unavailable, all of our curricula is available for free and upon request! If you are interested in receiving other curriculum, please let our education team know by filling out this form here.

(Click on an image below for the lesson plan.)

For those educators and parents looking to expand their library of environmental resources and activities, we have digital toolkits that combine technology and outdoor learning. These toolkits are perfect for providing hands-on activities close to home and around your neighborhood.

Learn along with us as we explore how we can all become a Zero Waste Champion!

Below is a list of apps that you can use to explore the world around you! If there are any applications that you have found to be awesome in the classroom that are not on this list please let us know.

Plant and Animal Identification

• iNaturalist – Record your outdoor observations, share with fellow naturalists, and discuss your findings
• PlantSnap – Snap pictures and identify local plants and flowers
• Audubon Bird Guide –  Go birdwatching with a trusty field guide of more than 800 species of North American fowl

Sustainability

• Austin Recycles Game – Learn about the City of Austin’s waste diversion program by sorting waste in this gaming app
• Litterati – Identify and map the litter around you
• Miniwalla and the Forest Story – A book-style app that weaves together stories of animals, the environment, and personal development
• Bin the Trash Recycling Game – Complete puzzles and activities focused on recycling

Ecology

• Texas Invasives – Become a citizen scientist by submitting invasive species observations directly into the Texasinvasives.org statewide database from your mobile device
• Science Journal – Catalog all of your unique sights, sounds, and observations in nature
• Night Sky App – Identify stars, planets, and constellations