Keep Austin Beautiful’s Clean Creek Campus Digital Toolkit is designed to be a resource for educators who have participated in our educational programming to further their efforts in bringing environmental literacy to the classroom. We are including resources that incorporate technology and various forms of media so as to help make learning accessible and to showcase how our electronic devices can be tools for learning and citizen science.

See below for lesson plans, apps, and other resources to use in your classroom!

 

Lesson Plans

Below are a number of lesson plans to be used as extensions to our Clean Creek Campus curriculum. These activities cover topics of water quality, litter abatement, biodiversity, and pollinators. While optional, many of these incorporate tablet or computer technology to enhance the lesson and allow students to participate in locally relevant citizen science projects.

• Digital Toolkit Lesson Plan – Litter (.docx, PDF, .xlsx)
• Digital Toolkit Lesson Plan – Watershed (.docx, PDF, .xlsx)
• Digital Toolkit Lesson Plan – Native Plants (.docx, PDF)
• Digital Toolkit Lesson Plan – Monarchs (.docx, PDF)

Apps

Below is a list of apps that can be paired with classroom activities. 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 Identification

• iNaturalist – Record your observations, share with fellow naturalists, and discuss your findings.
  • Seek by iNaturalist – Take your nature knowledge up a notch with Seek! Use the power of image recognition technology to identify the plants and animals all around you.
• PlantSnap – Snap pics to identify plants and flowers.

Sustainability

• Litterati – Identify and map the litter around you.

Ecology

• Texas Invasives – Use the Invaders App to report invasive species in Texas and learn how they affect the local ecosystem.

Professional

Below is a list of professional opportunities for teachers, programs for students, and resources for developing projects on campus.

For Students

• City of Austin’s Watershed Protection Department Earth School and Earth Camp Programs
• Austin Youth River Watch program for high school students
• El Ranchito summer programs for students

For Teachers

• Groundwater to Gulf training for educators
• Texas Association for Environmental Education
• Texas Parks and Wildlife Teacher Training Calendar
• Building a school garden
  • Central Texas School Garden Network
  • Wildlife Habitat Resource
  • Sustainable Food Center School Garden Training

Grant Opportunities

• Bright Green Futures Grants for School Sustainability Projects
• EcoRise Eco-Audit Grant for Campus Innovation
• Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center’s Seed Grant for planting wildflowers on school campus

 

Education

Below is a list of educational resources, including databases, free curriculum, podcasts, videos, and online games.

General

• Project Noah Citizen Science Resource
• Science Friday: Science podcasts for students

Waste

• Keep America Beautiful Resources
• City of Austin Waste Sorting Game
  • Austin Resource Recovery’s waste sorting resource
• 5 Gyres Institute Resources – focusing on dismantling the myth of “trash island” and educating the public about plastic pollution in the ocean:
  • Website
  • Video on The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Water & Climate

• City of Austin’s Find My Watershed Map
• Earth Echo Water Monitoring Challenge
• Climate and carbon footprint
  • Map of city climate footprints
  • Individual carbon footprint calculator

Naturalist

• City of Austin’s local plant database
• Monarch migration
  • Citizen science project ‘Journey North’
  • Guidelines for certifying your garden as a Certified Wildlife Habitat through the National Wildlife Federation
• Urban forestry:
  • Project Learning Tree/US Forest Service Teaching curriculum for High School –  Software and lesson plans for identifying and mapping trees in local area
    • iTree Curriculum

 

Know of any other great resources we should add? Let us know!