Watershed Detectives is an award-winning program for middle and high school students in Austin to learn more about our local water resources. Our middle school program offers a place-based curriculum called the Fish Kill Mystery and flood safety awareness activities. Our high school program offers water test kits for aquatic science and environmental science classes. We also offer field trip support to caves, creeks, and springs.
- Watershed Detectives - Middle School
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The Fish Kill Mystery
Make science relevant to your middle school students with an Austin- based, hands-on watershed investigation!
The Austin Watershed Detectives Fish Kill Mystery curriculum is a series of three lessons based on a true historical pollution event that occurred in Austin in 1979. In this hands-on simulation, students investigate a contaminated pond where 200 fish were found dead. Students use topographic maps and a watershed model to determine flow paths and then locate the source of contamination by conducting simulated tests. All lessons are correlated to the 7th Grade Science TEKS.
Kit Request Form (PDF)
Flood Safety Awareness
Use the Watershed Detectives Web Map to find out what watershed you live in and whether you live in a floodplain. You can search for your address, zoom into a particular area, click layers of information on or off and adjust the opacity of layers to create your own map. Check out www.atxfloods.com for information about the status of low water crossings and www.atxfloodsafety.com for flood safety information.
In the following lesson, students conduct an experiment with a model of a low-water crossing and learn about factors that cause flooding and what they can do to stay safe during a flood:
A model of a low-water crossing is available to be checked out.
- Watershed Detectives - High School
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Our high school program provides water quality tests and field trip support.
- Watershed Detectives - Field Investigations
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Watershed Detectives provides a limited number of field trip opportunities per year based on staff availability. These field trips include caving to explore the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone and cave biota, water quality testing of local creeks and educational tours of Barton Springs to explore the discharge zone and learn about two endangered salamander species that are endemic to Austin.
To schedule a field trip use the contact information on the right side of this page. Field trips are scheduled on a first-come, first-served basis as scheduling permits.
CityView episode features the debut of our new flood curriculum at the Austin Area STEM Conference.