🎒 Activities & Missions

Build a cool, damp shelter from a broken clay pot and turn your garden into a home for the night watchman of the backyard.

Make a cool, shady hiding place from a broken clay pot. A toad may use it as a daytime rest stop.

Make tiny nest spaces for mason bees and other busy pollinators. No rent money required.

Put a log in a shady spot and check it over time. Look for beetles, worms, fungi, pill bugs, and other cleanup crew members.

Build a little raft from sticks and leaves. Then see whether it can float across a puddle without sinking like a rock with opinions.

Use fresh flowers and leaves to make colorful prints on fabric or paper. Ask a grown-up before picking anything.

Plan a garden full of flowers, food, and shelter for bees, butterflies, beetles, and hummingbirds.

Make a butterfly-friendly space with the right plants, sunny spots, and places for caterpillars to grow.

Collect fallen petals, leaves, and seeds. Seal them in a sun-catcher and hang it in a bright window.

Mix dirt and water to make muddy paint. Decorate rocks, logs, or clay pots, then let the next rain wash the canvas clean.

Construct bamboo and wood apartments for solitary mason bees — the most efficient pollinators in the backyard.

Count birds. Listen for frogs. Watch bugs. Write down what you find. Real scientists use observations from regular backyards, too.

Turn broken crayons into swirly new crayons with sunlight, a box, and help from a grown-up.

Seeds cannot walk, so they need help. Test how seeds fly, float, stick, roll, or hitch a ride on fur.

Place a log in a shady corner and discover the entire secret world of decomposers living underneath — the cleanup crew of the forest floor.

Build a miniature raft from sticks and a leaf sail, then race it in a puddle. You're solving the same problems ancient shipbuilders solved.

Transfer living color from fresh flowers directly onto fabric by pounding them — a Japanese natural dyeing technique that turns your garden into an art supply store.

Design a living feast that feeds native bees, beetles, and hummingbirds from spring through fall — a real working wildlife habitat.

A butterfly garden supports the full life cycle from egg to adult. The right host plants, warm basking rocks, and a mineral puddling spot make it work.

Seal petals, leaves, and seeds in contact paper, frame them in cardboard, and hang in a window. The Louisiana sun turns your backyard finds into stained glass.

Mix Louisiana dirt and water to make natural earth paint, then decorate logs, rocks, and clay pots. The next rain erases it — leaving a blank canvas for next time.

Real scientists need data from backyards across the country — and kids can provide it. Every bird you count and every frog call you hear goes into a database researchers actually use.

Build a foil-lined solar oven from a shoebox and use the Louisiana sun to melt broken crayons into brand-new rainbow-swirl crayons.

Plants can't walk — so they've evolved amazing tricks. Study helicopter samaras and sticky hitchhikers, then engineer your own seed dispersal method using only natural materials.