Celebrate nature at Dottie Jordan Park during the Roots and Wings Festival with Urban Forest Explorers! This event offers interactive nature play stations where kids can discover the wonders of roots, mushrooms, rocks, fossils, and bugs. It’s a fun, hands-on experience that invites young adventurers to learn about the hidden treasures of the forest ecosystem!

Join the Bullock Museum for a pollinator-themed H-E-B Free First Sunday!

Enjoy FREE exhibition admission all day during H-E-B Free First Sundays, held the first Sunday of every month. Explore the Story of Texas through three floors of exhibitions that showcase and tell the history of artifacts from around the state!

Pollinator-themed activities are from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m, with so many things to do!

• Start your own Texas wildflower field by making pollinator-friendly seed balls with Zilker Botanical Garden

• Sample local honey, explore beekeeping equipment and see live bees up close in an observation hive with The Texas Beekeepers Association

• Learn about pollinator science and conservation with The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation • Make a pollinator-antenna headband and interact with beekeeping tools and bee products with Two Hives Honey

• Discover the connection between pollinators and plants through activities from the Wildflower Research Center

• Make a mushroom craft and learn about mushrooms in Texas, including the new state mushroom, the Texas Star Mushroom with Central Texas Mycology

• Learn about exploring nature in Austin with Whole Earth Provision Co.

• Join our friends at Girlstart for interactive STEM demos and hands-on activities for kids of all ages.

• At 11:30am & 12:30pm, come listen to pollinator-themed stories with Westbank Library

• Take home a baby tree sapling to plant, courtesy of City of Austin’s Community Tree Preservation!

Learn more at: https://www.thestoryoftexas.com/visit/calendar/education/free-first-sunday-20241103

Also, join us after the Roots & Wings Festival on Wed. Nov. 6 at 12pm for a lecture titled “High Noon Talk: The Monarch Butterfly Migration: The Rise and Fall”. The program is also free! Learn more at: https://www.thestoryoftexas.com/visit/calendar/programs/high-noon-talk-20241106

Join us at Yarborough Branch for a morning of imaginative play! Designed for young learners, Imagination Station encourages learning through play. Discover the arts, practice your motor skills, and start your STEM exploration.

This month, learn about a variety of native pollinators, build a mushroom-based world-wide web, learn how trees carry water, learn to be a tree ID hero, and more!

Join Red Salmon Arts/ Casa de Resistencia Books for a Roots & Wings Festival Event Series!

Cafe Librito: 2024 Dia de los Muertos Festival, Oct. 26th 7pm- 9pm Join us for an evening of honoring our ancestors and cultura! Bring the family to enjoy live music food & drinks, BIPOC vendor market, bilingual kid’s storytime, kid’s crafting, and a guided fungi UV night walk with Central Texas Mycology!

Guests will hand pick flowers from our very own Resistencia Community Garden. Together, the community will build an altar to our ancestors with cempasuchiles, mano de leon, and amaranth flowers.

Everyone is encouraged to leave pictures (copies) and offerings for their loved ones! Goodie bag giveaways include the books, “Papá's Magical Water-Jug Clock” and “Lotli”, native pollinator seed mixes, & cempasuchil flowers for family altars at home.

• 7:00pm: Opening Ceremony

  • Guests can bring their ofrendas for the altar andcut fresh flowers from garden for altar

  • Goodie Bag Giveaway: children books, native pollinator seed mixes, and zines

• 7:30pm: Kids Bilingual Storytime (inside) with Lotli Illustrated Book about the origin of the Monarch Butterfly & “Papá's Magical Water-Jug Clock”

• 8:00pm: Bilingual Fungi UV Night Walk guided by Central Texas Mycology Jesus Garcia

• 8:30 - 9pm: Open Mic poetry

  Ongoing Activities!

BIPOC Vendor Market - Live Music - Arts & Crafts Tables - Mariposa Wings & Seedball Making - Painting Paper Mache Skulls - Baby Tree Giveaway!

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Celebrating Native American Heritage Month, November 2nd, 8:30am-11:30am: During Native American heritage month, our Native Roots program activities will center around The Three Sisters/Milpa, (currently growing in our Resistencia Community Garden). We will intertwine indigenous storytelling centering, celebrating corn, harvest songs, and craft corn husk dolls in partnership with Central Texas Cherokee Township!

Celebrate nature at our Windsor Park Branch during the Roots and Wings Festival with Urban Forest Explorers! There will be a booth at their Un-BEE-Lievable Pollinators Festival featuring interactive nature play where kids can discover the wonders of roots, mushrooms, rocks, fossils, and bugs. It’s a fun, hands-on experience that invites young adventurers to learn about the hidden treasures of the forest ecosystem!

Join us at the Hampton Branch for a morning of imaginative play! Designed for young learners, Imagination Station encourages learning through play. Discover the arts, practice your motor skills, and start your STEM exploration.

This month, learn about a variety of native pollinators, build a mushroom-based world-wide web, learn how trees carry water, learn to be a tree ID hero, and more!

Session 1: 10:00 - 10:45 am

Session 2: 11:00 - 11:45 am

Join Central Texas Mycological Society & Ecology Action for an evening of family friendly, fungal fun as the Circle Acres Preserve in East Austin will be transformed into a Fluorescent Forest!

5-7pm: Come before dark for mushroom snacks, music, mushroom crafts, and a tree identification tour of the Healthy Soils, Healthy Trees community research project. Participate in hands-on demos to upcycle mushroom blocks at the Myco Research Station, and learn how to divert organic matter from the waste stream and turn it into valuable resources for your home and community.

7-8pm: Guided Tour of Fluorescent Forest & Glow in the Dark Bingo Explore the forest in a new light and discover the diverse, nocturnal ecosystem of the Circle Acres Preserve with UV flashlight to see glowing mushrooms, lichens, night pollinators, birds, insects, plants, and more. This family friendly event will highlight fungi's role in transforming a former dumpsite into a thriving urban forest. Learn how fungi are entangled in the forest helping plants gain water and nutrients, creating the pigments that give flowers their beautiful colors, and helping plants communicate with pollinators. We will have UV flashlights and a mothing set-up so we can attract and see the diverse, nocturnal ecosystem in a new light. Guests will learn how to look for, photograph and be community scientists in adding fluorescing organisms to the iNaturalist project.

We will have mushroom blocks for everyone to take home and upcycle. Mushroom snacks and warm Mush Love Tea provided. Get creative with glowing outfits, face paint and don't forget your camera and tripod.

Space is limited so to reserve tickets, RSVP here. Learn more here about how some plants, mushrooms, lichens and insects have evolved color patterns that are visible in the ultraviolet portion of the electromagnetic light spectrum, which humans cannot see but many insects, birds and animals can see.

Rain Date: Sun. Oct. 27th

Join us at the Domain for a day filled with fun and learning during the Roots & Wings Festival as we celebrate trees, healthy soil, mushrooms, and the beauty of nature!

Event Highlights:

Tree Planting Ceremony | 12:30 PM
Join us as we partner with local tree-planting organizations to plant trees with our neighbors. Take home a sapling to plant in your own yard.

Tree Identification Tools
Discover how to enhance tree growth using mushroom compost blocks. Booklets and apps available.

Mushroom Compost Blocks | 1:00 PM
Participate in hands-on workshops exploring soil health, urban forests, and the vital role of fungi. Receive free mushroom compost blocks for your tree-planting efforts.

Mushroom Growing Workshop | 2:00 PM
Learn how to cultivate edible mushrooms at home with a live demonstration. Mushroom growing kits will be available for purchase from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM to support sustainability projects.

Art Station | 2:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Kids can create tree and mushroom-themed crafts, including leaf rubbings and mushroom paintings.

Event Partners: Food to Fork Community, Sustainability Alliance, and Silos Farmers Market

Other dates:

Sunday, 10/27: Batty for Bats & Pollinators: A Halloween Market Celebration with Trick or Treat!

Sunday, 11/3: Birds and Bees Festival: Celebrating Our Pollinators and Feathered Friends!

Discover the magic of nature with Urban Forest Explorers: Nature Play at APL!

Children can explore roots, mushrooms, rocks, fossils, and bugs through interactive, hands-on stations that inspire curiosity and learning.

This event is perfect for young nature enthusiasts to engage with the natural world in a playful and educational setting!

Join Patterson Park Community Garden as we celebrate our annual Roots and Wings Festival!

This family friendly event will combine all things nature, gardening and pollinators into a fun, educational and community building experience. Learn about bee keeping, mycology, native plants and so much more while you mingle with neighbors and enjoy kids crafts, live music and a Monarch butterfly puppet show!