Texas Nature Challenge

Texas Nature Challenge is a family-oriented, friendly competition whose main goal is to get people outside, spending time together and visiting their local parks, nature centers and green spaces. The experience calls for families or groups to visit designated nature sites across the region in which they live and complete challenges at each site. Texas Nature Challenge is coordinated by Texas A&M Forest Service, Houston Audubon, Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program, Texas Discovery Gardens, and Austin Nature & Science Center and many local nature areas and businesses across Texas.

Families or groups register online, http://naturechallenge.tamu.edu/, according to region. The program has six regions: North Texas, Central Texas, Alamo, Bayou, Coastal Bend, and Rio Grande Valley. Each region’s competition runs about 12 weeks, dependent on the regional committee and the challenges at the natural areas. The, Central Texas, Alamo, and Bayou regions coordinate their activities from late spring through summer while the North Texas, Coastal Bend and Rio Grande Valley regions coordinate their activities from late summer through the fall. The Texas Nature Challenge website also offers the opportunity for families to blog about their experiences.

The challenges are created by each participating site and uploaded to the website. Families or groups can then pick and choose which challenges they want to attempt. Some challenges are written for an on-your-own experience, while others are tied to specific events. The variety of challenges offered by the sites is appealing to beginners as well as advanced outdoor enthusiasts.

In some regions, participating families or groups are eligible to win prizes by documenting their experiences in a scrapbook, nature journal, field notebook, Texas Nature Challenge blog or other collection. They can be as creative as they like in presenting their documentation. Some turn this into a school assignment with a straightforward field journal with pictures and writing entries, others make a binder showing off their work, and others create full scrapbooks of their adventure.

Currently scheduled region dates are:

Bayou (Houston area) – now through August 9

Central (Austin area) – April 26 through early August

Coastal Bend (Corpus area) – August 23 through November 8

North (Dallas/Fort Worth area) – tentative fall program

Visit the Texas Nature Challenge Website for more information or to register your family or group!