Learning Resources

Barton Creek Time Stream offers Central Texas teachers a unique opportunity to enhance the high school curriculum in AP Environmental Science and Sociology courses. These specially-designed lessons introduce students to the complex challenges of environmental protection efforts and civic engagement using real-world scenarios. Barton Creek Time Stream provides a vehicle for young adults to study the past and explore new strategies for environmental engagement.

The curriculum is geared to AP Environmental Science learning objectives, but could be easily adapted to other subjects. Below the lessons, you will find a list of useful publications.

Barton Creek Time Stream

IS BARTON CREEK AN ENVIRONMENTAL SUCCESS STORY?

Students will be challenged to consider the essential question, “to what extent is Austin’s Barton Creek Greenbelt an environmental success story?” Students will be able to describe important historical events relating to the Barton Creek ecosystem and how those events have shaped the environmental landscape of the area. Students can identify and describe the HIPPCO factors affecting the Barton Creek ecosystem. Non-APES students can identify and describe negative impacts of human population growth affecting the Barton Creek ecosystem.

Lesson Plan & Student Materials
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Lesson Themes

APES Topic 9.10: Human Impacts on Biodiversity (College Board; Unit 9-Global Change)

EIN-4 The health of a species is closely tied to its ecosystem, and minor environmental changes can have a large impact.

Learning Objective EIN-4.C

Explain how human activities affect biodiversity and strategies to combat the problem.

Essential Knowledge

EIN-4.C.1: HIPPCO (habitat destruction, invasive species, population growth, pollution, climate change, and over exploitation) describes the main factors leading to a decrease in biodiversity.

EIN-4.C.6: Some ways humans can mitigate the impact of loss of biodiversity include creating protected areas, use of habitat corridors, promoting sustainable land use practices, and restoring lost habitats.

Barton Creek Time Stream

Barton Creek Stewardship Lesson

By utilizing the Time Stream’s related events timelines and stewardship profiles, students will be asked to consider how environmental stewardship has served to protect local habitats and communities. After completion of this lesson the student will be able to describe the role of environmental stewardship, the different types of stewardship, and the resulting impacts of stewardship on biodiversity, ecosystem sustainability and humans. To demonstrate critical thinking, students will build infographics and develop new communication skills learning to share information succinctly using language, graphic design, and images.

Lesson Plan & Student Materials
More
Lesson Themes

APES Topic 9.10: Human Impacts on Biodiversity (College Board; Unit 9-Global Change)

EIN-4 The health of a species is closely tied to its ecosystem, and minor environmental changes can have a large impact.

Learning Objective EIN-4.C

Explain how human activities affect biodiversity and strategies to combat the problem.

Essential Knowledge

EIN-4.C.1: HIPPCO (habitat destruction, invasive species, population growth, pollution, climate change, and over exploitation) describes the main factors leading to a decrease in biodiversity.

EIN-4.C.6: Some ways humans can mitigate the impact of loss of biodiversity include creating protected areas, use of habitat corridors, promoting sustainable land use practices, and restoring lost habitats.

Additional Resources

Films

Origins of a Green Identity

The film explores Austin's early efforts to preserve Barton Springs and Barton Creek, and ultimately to develop a city with publicly-accessible green spaces along Austin's waterways. Two primary architects at the center of efforts to protect Barton Springs, Barton Creek and to clean up and develop Ladybird lake were Chairman of the Austin Parks Board, Roberta Crenshaw and Director of the Austin Parks and Recreation Department, Beverly Sheffield.

Wildlands

This short film explores Austin water quality protection lands, 34,085 acres that have been set aside in conservation easement to protect Austin's crown jewel, Barton Springs. The film journeys above and below ground exploring the unique ecosystems that include a karst aquifer and cave system, the endangered Barton Springs salamander. Austin's Wildlands, purchased through active participation of Austin's citizens, reflect a strong environmental ethic amidst Austin's exploding growth.

Books

Austin Environmental City: People, Place, Politics and the Meaning of Modern Austin

by William Scott Swearingen, Jr. University of Texas Press, 2010

This is a history of the environmental movement in Austin—how it began; what it did; and how it promoted ideas about the relationships between people, cities, and the environment. It is also about a deeper movement to retain a sense of place that is Austin, and how that deeper movement continues to shape the way Austin is built today. The city it helped to create is now on the forefront of national efforts to rethink how we build our cities, reduce global warming, and find ways that humans and the environment can coexist in a big city.

Barton Creek

by Ed Crowell Texas A&M University Press, 2019

Following the creek from downtown Austin’s Barton Springs Pool to its source as a cow-pasture trickle, longtime resident and journalist Ed Crowell explores the creek’s contentious political history, its historic and current residents, and the mounting environmental pressures threatening it. Barton Creek highlights the passionate individuals involved in the stream’s preservation, from city scientists to local landowners, all of whom want to see the creek running clear and clean for future generations. Striking photography and vivid descriptions will entice readers to fall in love with Barton Creek all over again.

Barton Springs Eternal: The Soul of a City

by Marshall Frech and Turk Pipkin Softshoe Press, 1993

Barton Springs Eternal: The Soul of a City is a testament to Austin's treasured natural swimming area. The personal views and reminiscences of prominent Texas writers, two hundred historical and contemporary photographs, and interviews with long-time Austinites comprise a ringing testimony that our natural wonders must be preserved in order that they may in turn preserve us all.

Power, Money & the People,The Making of Modern Austin

by Anthony M. Orum, Resource Publications, 1987

Power, Money & the People is a fascinating chronicle of Austin's urban boom. Austin's growth was no accident. Orum traces its beginnings to the New Deal years, when congressman Lyndon B. Johnson sponsored federal capital works projects that created the springboard for expansion, starting with the building of the dams on the Colorado River. Then, as now, the Austin City Council played a central role in determining the direction of growth. Orum offers one of the most intimate views of the workings of local politics in the literature of urban America. The political and financial influences of such Austin notables as Tom Miller, Walter Long, Commodore Edgar Perry, C.B. Smith and legendary Austin populist Emma Long is vividly described.

City in a Garden, Environmental Transformations and Racial Justice in Twentieth Century Austin, Texas

by Andrew M. Busch, The University of North Carolina Press, 2017

Andrew M. Busch invites readers to consider the wider implications of environmentally friendly urban development. As Austin modernized and attracted an educated and skilled labor force, the demand to preserve its natural spaces was used to justify economic and racial segregation.While Austin’s mainstream environmental record is impressive, its minority groups continue to live on the economic, social, and geographic margins of the city. By demonstrating how the city’s mid-century modernization and progressive movement sustained racial oppression, restriction, and uneven development in the decades that followed, Busch reveals the darker ramifications of Austin’s green growth.