For your next movie night, check out the Freshkills FreshFlicks staff picks. Take a trip down memory lane with a Fresh Perspective, with films that are just as environmentally relevant today!

Explore different environmental topics by clicking on the titles in our queue.

Coloring books are not only a fun activity for your younger ones, but beneficial to an audience of all age ranges. For older folk, this activity allows for the fear and stress center in the brains to relax. For the younger crowds, coloring pages can help develop fine motor skills.

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!

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.

Happy National Bike Month!

To celebrate biking in May, we created this Bingo board to document the plants, birds, and people that you may see while biking along the New Springville Greenway or your favorite local park. Click here for a printable version.

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.

Single-use plastic was introduced soon after the Fresh Kills landfill opened in the 1940s. Instead of reducing or reusing, Americans began to love the ease of just throwing things away. No need to wash the dishes- just toss them! The increase in disposable items and the accompanying rise of “throwaway culture” was one factor that led to the Fresh Kills Landfill’s growth.

Rachel Aronson is the Education Programming Coordinator for Freshkills Park. She loves spending time with kids and being outside, and she is passionate about improving access to parks in urban spaces. Rachel has worked as a classroom teacher, environmental educator, and manager of the Hazon Seal of Sustainability, a sustainability program for organizations.

In 2016, Arihunt and Avni Garg participated in a tour of Freshkills Park and learned about waste management in New York City. “Although the Sanitation and Parks Departments were working very hard, it seemed to be an uphill battle to keep our city clean,” said Avni, a freshman at Stuyvesant High School.