Elm Fork Chapter of the Texas Master Naturalists currently has 50 active projects. The project map shows the project locations, along with a short description. Select any map marker to view the details.
Additional non-site-specific projects are active in multiple locations in Denton, Cooke, and Wise counties. View the complete project list below.
For more information, email: contact@efctmn.org
List of All Projects
| Projects in Alphabetical Order with Location | Project Description | Project Group | |
| 1 | 4-H Entomology (Denton County) | Educating 4-H youth in insect classification and life cycles by helping them collect and preserve insects for youth fair contests. | Training and Education |
| 2 | Advisory and Outreach (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Providing education and public outreach to various public groups and events. | Outreach to the Public |
| 3 | Argyle Nature Trail (Argyle) | This small remnant of Cross Timbers Forest is a glimpse into the ecosystem that once covered this area of North Texas. Although surrounded by developments it remains an oasis of Cross Timbers. It will serve to advance every element of the chapter’s purposes. Upcoming activities will include removing debris and invasives, laying out where the perimeter paved trail will run, and laying out interior soft trails. Cut trails and remove material, mulch soft trails. After the park is open to the public there will be continued need to maintain trails. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 4 | BAT Project Acoustic Monitoring (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Using standardized acoustic tracking protocols to gather data on bat populations. | Field Research/ Citizen Science |
| 5 | Benthic Monitoring (Denton) | Collecting and identifying aquatic macroinvertebrates from local streams to determine water quality. | Field Research/ Citizen Science |
| 6 | Beulah Acres Agroforest (Corinth) | Contributing expertise regarding the North Central Texas native ecosystem to support the design and development of an ecologically balanced agroforest that can serve as an educational model for the community. This project is spearheaded by the Beulah Acres team and involves collaboration with the Denton County Master Gardeners Association | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 7 | Bob Jones Nature Center (Southlake) | Helping restore and preserve plants and wildlife and educate the public through various activities for 758 acres of the Eastern Cross Timbers Ecosystem open to the public for education and outdoor activities. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 8 | Bryo-Texana (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Assisting the project manager in the collection, processing, and recording of specimen data on mosses, liverworts and hornworts found in the area. Processed specimens are sent to the S. M. Tracy Herbarium at Texas A&M. | Field Research/ Citizen Science |
| 9 | Clear Creek Natural Heritage Center (Denton) | Helping with trail maintenance and construction, assisting with nature hikes, research, conservation, and restoration projects. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 10 | CoCoRaHS (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Participating in a network of North American citizen scientists to collect and report precipitation data to the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University. The data is used by a wide variety of organizations and individuals. | Field Research/ Citizen Science |
| 11 | Community Cleanup Events (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Participating in Elm Fork Chapter Service Area community cleanup events intended to remove foreign debris from natural spaces and waterways. | Community Support |
| 12 | Conservation of Nature at Night (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Helping improve the nighttime environment in our area by conserving and protecting native flora and fauna from the harmful effects of light pollution (a.k.a., artificial light at night). Educating and engaging chapter members and the communities in our area through training and public outreach, providing free technical guidance as requested/appropriate, and enabling citizen science research on light pollution in our area. | Training and Education |
| 13 | DFW Wildlife Coalition (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Answering hot line phone calls about wildlife emergencies. Direct the callers to help for injured or orphaned animals. Provide guidance to resolve animal/human conflicts. | Outreach to the Public |
| 14 | DISD School Days at Clear Creek (Denton) | Providing educational experiences to complement the Denton ISD field trips for 2nd graders in the spring and 4th graders in the fall. | Training and Education |
| 15 | Elm Fork Education Center (Denton) | Guiding groups of children and their adult chaperones between activities conducted in and around the Environmental Sciences Building on the UNT campus. | Training and Education |
| 16 | Flower Mound Pollinator Gardens (Flower Mound) | Maintaining approximately 3,600 square feet of pollinator gardens planted by the Town of Flower Mound. Locations include Westchester Park in Flower Mound and Flower Mound Town Hall. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 17 | The Flower Mound (Flower Mound) | Working to help preserve the Mound by eliminating woody plants and invasive species and conducting educational programs for the public on prairies and their importance. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 18 | Fort Worth Nature Center (Fort Worth) | Helping to care for animals, guiding canoe trips, leading nature walks, working on trails habitat restoration serving as a roving naturalist, and hosting in the visitor center. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 19 | Furneaux Creek Nature Trail (Carrollton) | Leading activities to restore the green belt with native plants, including butterfly gardens, to provide a natural ecosystem for wildlife along Furneaux Creek, and providing educational activities such as bird walks and nature talks. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 20 | Green Acres (Flower Mound) | Preserving and appreciating the park land by maintaining a monarch station, restoring a prairie, monitoring 8 bluebird boxes, encouraging a new wetlands area and observing and recording plants, insects, animals in the park. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 21 | Green Meadows Demonstration Garden (Celina) | Transform an 810-square foot raised plant bed at the Green Meadows amenity center into a native plant butterfly/pollinator habitat for the benefit of native species and human engagement with them. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 22 | Growing Up WILD (Trophy Club) Co-Project Managers | Working with Parks and Recreation, schools and Keep Trophy Club Wild to establish environmental education programs for people of all ages. | Training and Education |
| 23 | GTWT Adopt-A-Loop (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Perform site visits at the Great Texas Wildlife Trail Sites within Denton, Cooke, and Wise Counties. Each site will be visited four times each year (seasonally). The volunteers will complete the prescribed Site Visit Checklist and submit results to the Project Manager, who will compile the results and forward them to TPWD. | Field Research/ Citizen Science |
| 24 | iNaturalist (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Using the iNaturalist application platform to contribute to projects organized and managed by Texas Nature Trackers as well as bioblitzes and other organized field data collection projects focused on mapping, sharing, and identifying flora and fauna observations within our service area. | Field Research/ Citizen Science |
| 25 | Land Management Awareness (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Helping private landowners assess their property’s current wildlife habitat and making recommendations how to improve it. | Technical Guidance |
| 26 | Lantana Petals and Pathways (Lantana) | Designing, developing and maintaining an official Certified Monarch Waystation adjoining the Lantana Community Center and serving as an educational focal point on the use of native plants for suburban landscapes, gardening for birds, monarch conservation, and other topics related to pollinators and native landscaping. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 27 | LBJ National Grasslands Conservation Programs (Decatur Area) | Maintain and monitor bluebird nesting boxes and record data collected; assist in the collection of lichen species; assist in the search for, collection of and counting of particular plant species of interest as designated by the US Forest Service; participating in Bobwhite quail whistling call surveys on the property. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 28 | Lewisville Extending the Green (Lewisville) | Helping develop small nature parks in Lewisville over the next several years will provide opportunities to be involved in native species design, invasive removal and planting. Most of the sites are in so called “park deserts” in lower income neighborhoods, giving a chance to do community education and hands on outreach, particularly to children, about nature. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 29 | Lewisville ISD Outdoor Learning Area – LISDOLA (Lewisville) | Documenting species of plants and animals, building and maintaining trails and native plant demonstration gardens, and assisting with outdoor education classes. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 30 | Lewisville Lake Environmental Learning Area – LLELA (Lewisville) | Leading nature hikes for students and the public, assisting with bird banding, prairie, forest and wetland restoration, trail building and maintenance, angler education, nest box maintenance, manning the visitor center and giving tours of the homestead area. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 31 | McCord Park Wildscapes (Little Elm) | Create and maintain a butterfly and dragonfly wildscape with Texas native and adapted plants in an area pocketed by an existing concrete walkway at McCord Park in Little Elm. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 32 | Milkweed Seed Conservation (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Gathering and packaging milkweed seeds to give to local seed libraries, pollinator gardens and way stations. Growing milkweed plants to give away at area outreach events. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 33 | NestWatch (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Helping to track status and trends in the reproductive biology of birds, including when nesting occurs, number of eggs laid, how many eggs hatch, and how many hatchlings survive. | Field Research/ Citizen Science |
| 34 | Out of Area Service (Chapters adjoining the Elm Fork Chapter) | Elm Fork members can now record service hours for volunteering on projects in other, adjoining chapters (i.e., those that touch the area of our Chapter), with prior approval. | Defined by hosting chapter |
| 35 | Pratt Nature Preserve (Hickory Creek) | Advising and assisting the Town of Hickory Creek to preserve the natural state of western side of an almost 8 acre savanna prairie remnant and to encourage its citizens to learn about and appreciate the value of the prairie ecosystem. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 36 | Project FeederWatch (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Counting birds that appear in your count site and reporting the highest number of individuals that you see in view at one time to scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. | Field Research/ Citizen Science |
| 37 | QR Code Library (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Creating and maintaining a digital reference library based on QR codes that can be used at several Master Naturalist project sites, particularly those visited by the public. | Technical Guidance |
| 38 | Rain Garden Pilot Project for Ryan High School – with National Geographic grant (Denton) | This project is a National Geographic-funded pilot project for student learning and student-led construction of a rain garden at Ryan High School in Denton. The TMN-EFC role is primarily advisory. | Technical Guidance |
| 39 | Ray Roberts State Park (Valley View) | Leading guided hikes, monitoring and maintaining Bluebird boxes, greeting Nature Center visitors, and assisting TPWD with various educational events, and assistance in the development of a new park Field Guide. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 40 | Science with Attitude – SWAt (Denton County) | Providing assistance to the Junior Master Naturalist and Junior Master Gardener programs. School gardens, indoor and outdoor learning centers and demonstrating nature science kits to children’s classes. We work in partnership with the Denton County Master Gardeners. | Training and Education |
| 41 | Speakers Bureau (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Coordinates requests for guest speakers to present to area groups. | Outreach to the Public |
| 42 | Texas Native Plant Art Exhibition (Denton) | Providing Denton ISD fourth grade students a creative way to learn about native Texas plants through an art exhibition. The artwork is judged and displayed in the community. | Outreach to the Public |
| 43 | Texas Our Heritage Demonstration Garden (Highland Village) | Maintaining and restoring an educational garden at Heritage Elementary School in coordination with the Denton County Master Gardeners Association. Supporting an indoor learning center with rotational ecosystem informative displays. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 44 | Thrive Nature Park (Lewisville) | Providing design, development, and implementation support to the City of Lewisville as it transforms a 23-acre abandoned post oak savannah into a nature park that will serve as a community center for education and recreation. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 45 | Time to Restore (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | The Time to Restore (TTR) project, encompasses the states of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, and seeks to generate better information about native plant nectar availability and seed timing to help those working on pollinator restoration to better understand what to plant and when to best harvest seeds. | Field Research/ Citizen Science |
| 46 | Trees and Forest Management (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Providing education, outreach, and service dedicated to the better management of trees and forests within the three counties of Denton, Cooke, and Wise. Participating in Denton Redbud festival and set up and Children’s Arbor Day Presentations. | Specific Subject Matter |
| 47 | Trophy Club Park Conservation Area (Trophy Club) | Maintaining approximately 600 acres conservation areas within Trophy Club Park, providing education outreach, field observation, and study of Cross Timbers ecological zone and prairies. | Natural Sites and Settings |
| 48 | Water Quality Monitoring – Stream Team (Denton County) | All volunteers must be certified by the Texas Stream Team before any sampling is done for this project. Testing water at stream locations on at least a monthly basis. Water quality is tested for temperature, turbidity, pH, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, E. coli, nutrient levels, etc., along with climate information. | Field Research/ Citizen Science |
| 49 | Wellness in Nature (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Using a variety of activities in nature, we aim to boost mental health and create environmental stewards for the benefit of our natural resources. An example one of the primary activities will be walks in nature, with our target audience being individuals with neurological impairments and their caregivers. | Outreach to the Public |
| 50 | Wildlife Rehab Support (Elm Fork Chapter Service Area) | Supporting orphaned wildlife by providing resources to licensed rehabbers that help the injured and orphans until they are able to be released into the wild. Additional resources that can be provided include transportation of injured/orphaned wildlife to a licensed rehabber, rehabbing (if licensed), and educational initiatives. | Specific Subject Matter |