Keep Tahoe Blue Schools

Tahoe Blue Schools 

Tahoe Blue Schools connects students with Lake Tahoe through hands-on, place-based learning. Guided by Science to Solutions, students investigate what makes Tahoe unique, use data to understand threats, and explore how community science and stewardship help protect the Lake.

Place-Based Environmental Education

How do students learn to care for Lake Tahoe? By experiencing what makes it special and understanding what threatens it.

Keep Tahoe Blue’s environmental educators provide hands-on, experiential learning for local and visiting students, connecting them with the Tahoe environment. Through our place-based educational model, we help kids from pre-K through college build a lifelong sense of appreciation, respect, and responsibility for Lake Tahoe.

Learn about the Spurlock/Evers Environment & Education Center.

Our Learning Approach

Science to Solutions starts with three questions:

🔵 What makes Tahoe unique?
Explore Tahoe’s water, ecosystems, landscapes, and natural processes through observations, questions, and discovery.

🔵 What threatens Tahoe?
Collect and interpret evidence about challenges affecting the Lake and its watershed, including observations gathered through community science.

🔵 How can we help protect Lake Tahoe?
Use evidence to choose solutions, share findings, and take stewardship action. Community science connects what people observe with what scientists and communities can do.

How We Teach

We offer a variety of options that best fit your teaching style and needs.

Classroom Lesson

• Keep Tahoe Blue educators bring interactive, grade-appropriate lessons to students that connect hands-on investigations and data literacy with Lake-friendly solutions.

Visit the Spurlock/Evers Environment & Education Center

Students investigate Tahoe science through hands-on experiences at the Spurlock/Evers Environment & Education Center, connecting discoveries with ways to protect the Lake.

In the Field

• Take learning outdoors through observation, data collection, and stewardship. Connect field investigations with community science methods and opportunities suited to students’ ages and readiness.

Teach It Yourself 

• We provide the curriculum. Teachers choose the pace.

Educators can access ready-to-use Tahoe Blue Schools curriculum units for the classroom, schoolyard, or field, connecting inquiry and data literacy with stewardship solutions. Resources can include:

• Step-by-step lesson plans
• Student activities and handouts
• Teacher background information
• Facilitation guides
• Materials and material lists
• Tahoe-specific maps, data, and community science examples
• Indoor and outdoor options
• Evidence-based stewardship extensions

Teachers can use one activity, a complete lesson, or an entire unit, adapting the experience to their students and schedule. Connecting classroom learning with real-world action. Tahoe Blue Schools connects classroom inquiry with real-world evidence, community science, and stewardship, supporting:

• California NGS
• Data literacy: collecting, graphing, interpreting, and evaluating data
• Systems thinking and evidence-based problem-solving
• Community science and environmental stewardship
• Bring Tahoe Blue Schools to Your Students

Connect your students with Tahoe through classroom lessons, an Education Center visit, field investigations, or teacher-led curriculum. Explore community science connections that turn observations and data into informed action to Keep Tahoe Blue.

• Request a Program
• Explore Curriculum
• Plan an Education Center Visit