On any given Thursday you can find Travis High Green Teens exploring nearby Blunn Creek Nature Preserve. During weekly hikes students identified native and invasive plants using a dichotomous key, and discovered the rich diversity of color that can be found in nature by sharpening their senses with a paint swatch scavenger hunt. On a routine hike students spotted a red tail hawk. In awe of the feathery visitor teens perched themselves to watch for the remainder of the class period. Inspired by all the preserve has to offer students picked up trash any time they were in the preserve and regularly held workdays including hosting a service project in conjunction with “It’s My Park Day” to remove invasive Ligustrum and plant natives in the area.

 

To gain a better understanding of the preserve and how to care for it, students engaged in studies about watersheds, water quality, litter, aquifers, soil types, and impervious surfaces. In the process, students discovered how easily pollutants from the school ground are washed into the preserve.  If only every school could be next to a City preserve!

 

One feature of the preserve stood out beyond all the others - an old Plateau Oak Tree that was being smothered by the invasive plants. Marveled by the tree students cleared a large area around the tree and nominated it for the Tree of the Year award, and annual City of Austin application process. Nominating the tree included taking hundreds of photos of the tree, its surroundings, and the wildlife found dwelling it; collecting feather and leaves found near the tree; and creating a scrapbook complete with personal reflections of the tree and its importance.

    

Teens from LBJ and Travis geared up with helmets, head lamps, and knee pads to crawl through Whirlpool Cave. After touching 45,000 year old rock and exploring the flow of water teens headed to Eliza Springs to see the endangered Barton Springs Salamander.