Teacher Impressions of McKinney Falls State Park

James Scott

James ScottWhen I first drove into McKinney Falls Park I was shocked. I've lived in Austin for 6 years and never knew this park was just around the corner from my house. After entering I was immediately reminded of my last camping trip and felt a little rush of excitement. I parked and started walking to the Smith Visitors Center, eager to begin exploring what this park has to offer.

Learning the history that is embedded in McKinney Falls Park was an unexpected surprise. Learning how the park came into being how McKinney played an integral role in shaping Austin and discovering the ruins there impressed me. All this rich history just down from where I live and I never knew it existed.

The coolest part of the day was seeing what natural attractions the park has to offer. Seeing the lower falls, using those great kits to test the biodiversity and make great observations there and hiking the Rock Shelter trail (16) was awe inspiring. Seeing the falls and learning that they change throughout the year with the amount of rain peaked my curiosity. How can students compare and contrast the physical conditions of the falls at different times of the year? What experiments could they incorporate or create? My imagination stared going into overdrive.

The discovery of the Texas Parks and Wildlife's fantastic kits was a bonus. The resources that are available are great! These kits have wonderful reference books as well as equipment that could make the students time at the falls more enjoyable. While we were collecting specimens and observing them, all I could do was chuckle and keep looking. I thought, "What else will I find?". I walked over to the falls, seeing fish and discovered some animal remains. The only thought that kept going through my mind was, "This is so cool!" How can I get my students to feel this way about nature?

The day went on and Chris, Melissa and I started brainstorming. It was easier than I thought to generate some initial ideas. We wrote down some ways to engage the kids, then took another tour, this time looking at the scenery between the upper and lower falls on the Rock Shelter trail. We were crossing ravines and, creeks and saw other areas too dangerous to cross. We passed one of the largest trees I have ever seen, right next one of the cool wooden bridges. (18) Looking up at this massive bald cypress, I could not even imagine what age this tree was. I have never seen the Redwood forest, but seeing this tree now, I felt like I had a reference point for those other massive trees.

The site excited me and fueled me to plan out and bring students. This year will be so much better with all I am learning and seeing and I can't wait to pass it on to the students!

Melissa Shannon

Melissa ShannonI had been to McKinney Falls twice before: once to explore with my dad, the naturalist and once as a student in my Texas Native Plants class. This third visit seemed to bring the other two visits and facts I had learned about this place all together. We arrived at the falls and I had a flashback about identifying the big pecan trees surrounding the creek from my class. Actually using my bug picking skills that I had learned during student teaching was so cool! You would think because my school is on Town Lake it would be so useful but you can't just jump into Town Lake and start finding bugs! I found so many cool little invertebrates even though the weather has been so dry. When we took our nature walk that afternoon I felt like a little kid showing off the park to the rest of the group. I remembered the cool little bridge to " Old Baldy" the massive bald cypress tree.(6) Then at the Rock Shelter you can almost feel like a Native American looking onto the creek getting ready to shoot my dinner!

The geologist in me still wants to find the ammonite fossil my geology professor talked about in college. Supposedly there is a 6 foot wide ammonite fossil in the rock. This snail-like looking creature would have been as tall as a basketball player and it lived right here in the shallow Cretaceous sea. Pilot Knob exploded and killed most everything -but fossilized a lot. McKinney Falls is like a snapshot of the Cretaceous time. Fossils of organisms, volcanic debris, and even fossilized wave impressions.

Possible field trips? How do you entertain 120 of your finest little ones in this place? Divide and conquer! The activities we thought about are good for 20 kids max. Other teachers must have buy in and the kids need to be prepped on the rock cycle, what and ecosystem is and a little bit of Austin history. You don't have to do written activities on the trip-you can save that for when you get back. Let them explore what is essentially in their own back yard. A couple of activities can be done in multiple locations - like bug-picking. The historic locations are all over the park so that visiting them can be done in shifts and multiple groups. Wow, this place has a lot to offer!

Chris Costello

I stood on the Rock Shelter Trail (1) seeing as it is in 2006 and wondered what it was like 35 million years ago. I knew that in the area it had been volcanically active and imagined fire bombs and ash exploding into the air around me. It was also a shallow sea. Would the Onion Creek Mosasaur been swimming by the place was standing? What about the first people to live in this area? What was a day in their lives like? How does what I see now compare to what they would have seen thousands of years ago?

I hope that my students would be filled with these questions and many more spurned by their imagination as they could stand there as I had. It is experiences like these that captivate and inspire us to build on what we already know. What else would my students bring with them and how could I tap into it with even my most reserved and tentative students?

As significant and fascinating as the history around me is, the one thing I have been charged with is educating these my students about their responsibility and how to care for this place including the water that flows through it, the animals who make their homes here, the trees and plants that feed the processes that feeds the world!