Activities

This video tour, an Urban Safari of the UT Austin campus, explores the natural world of our urban spaces and includes common – and not so common – organisms that can be found on campus.  It highlights challenges facing urban nature and spotlights areas where there has been success in encouraging plants, animals and microbes to flourish.

In this series of short videos, you’ll meet members of the main groups of invertebrates that live in the ocean—anemones, corals, snails, shrimp, crabs, sea stars and sea urchins. And just for fun, you’ll also meet some of the most popular vertebrates on the 40 Acres: residents of the UT Turtle Pond.

Join Greg Clark from the Freshman Research Initiative Cell Signaling team to discover how plants have unexpected abilities to sense and respond to stimuli and "talk with" each other and with animals. Learn how plants sense and respond to changes in their environment and how plants are able to communicate using a chemical language.

The Texas Advanced Computing Center at UT Austin is home to some of the fastest supercomputers in the world. Researchers and students use cutting-edge technologies to help advance knowledge on climate change, space debris, and urban waterways.

Come learn about the technology we use everyday! We have two different sets of activities based on grade level. For our middle, junior, and high school students, we have a technology crossword and word search. For our younger elementary students, we have two activities. The first is a presentation about S.M.A.R.T. safety tips when using technology and the internet. 

The discovery module on emergency preparedness will help teach kids and families about how to be prepared for emergencies such as fires, floods, winter storms, and man-made disasters. This short program will cover important information, such as a checklist on how to build an emergency kit, tips to remain safe in different types of emergencies, the dos and don’ts of certain unsafe situations, emergency numbers to keep on hand, and a mix of games and quizzes to engage viewers and facilitate learning. By being aware of the different roles, resources, and responsibilities involved in emergency preparedness and disasters, you can help keep yourself, your family, and community safe.

Building a model of the human lungs and diaphragm using balloons to understand how they work. Our lungs are vital to our body's respiratory system and our ability to acquire oxygen. The bottom balloon works like your diaphragm, which is a strong muscle that expands and contracts, causing the lungs to fill with air and then emptying it.

This virtual nature tour of the UT campus and around Austin utilizes the format of a choose-your-own-adventure game. Players can choose where to go, what to see, and with which systems they want to interact. Along the way, adventurers can discover the variety of ecosystems that exist and the organisms that inhabit them.