Highlights:

• There are some important general features of nest boxes to benefit birds
• Nest boxes are generally designed with a particular species in mind,
• Location is important when deciding which species you wish to attract
• Remember to report your sighting to Project NestWatch

Within the next few weeks, migrating birds will be returning to our area for the spring and summer.

Welcome to the Discovery Week @ Home Virtual STEAM Activity Fair!

Click on the pictures below to explore and try different activities.

Thank you to our partners at MakerSpace NYC, Parks @ Home Jr., and the Staten Island Museum for sharing activities.

Make your own kinetic paper animals with Deborah from MakerSpace NYC! How many things can you make from paper? From just one piece of copy paper, you can create a flying animal. Cut pieces and adhere them together so you can manipulate the wings of a paper bird, dinosaur – or any animal you can imagine!

Join artist James Powers for a plein-air drawing lesson on North Mound looking out at Main Creek and the William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge. James is the artist and instructor behind Fastnet, a 20-foot shipping container that he outfitted as a gallery and outdoor drawing studio from which he teaches landscape drawing workshops at Freshkills Park.

They say that April showers bring May flowers, and that’s certainly on full display during walks through the park in late spring and early summer. Nature is bursting with colorful flowers, sweet smells, and new leaves. At Freshkills Park, the grasslands are full of purple Cow Vetch, yellow Birdsfoot Trefoil, blue-green Little Bluestem.

Have you ever wondered why animals act a certain way? At Freshkills Park, researchers use ethograms to learn more about animals like osprey. In this week’s STEAM @ Home challenge, learn more about your pet, neighborhood birds, or even a mosquito through observing and recording their behavior with an ethogram.



Soil is a complex, living ecosystem, full of microorganisms, fungi, worms, insects, bacteria, and nutrients, as we learned by watching Dirt! The Movie. Today, we will learn more about how researchers study soil in Freshkills Park and beyond.

Watch this video to learn about soil sampling and invent a device to take a core sample using things you have at home!  

Can plants move? Plants can’t walk, but they have to “move” to reproduce and find successful habitat for growth. Pollinators, like Barry in Bee Movie, help plants reproduce by carrying pollen from one plant to another. Seeds have evolved structures similar to parachutes, helicopters, and fasteners to move across their habitats.

Today, April 22, 2020, marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Millions around the world are mobilizing to address the climate crisis. In addition to supporting policies to reduce carbon emissions, we can take small actions at home to live more sustainably.

Spring is in the air. At Freshkills Park that usually means the beginning of spring field trips and tours, but because we are social distancing, we’re bringing some of our favorite projects to you at home. Earlier this week Ariel from The Little Mermaid inspired us to decorate with things she scavenged.  

In our Freshkills Freshflix review of WALL-E, we learned that the average American throws out about 5 pounds of garbage a day. Much of that garbage could be recycled. New Yorkers recycle about 17% of our waste, less than half of possible material.