Under the Desert Sky

Borton Children Learn in
Outdoor Garden Next to Their School

Children at Borton Primary Magnet School don't have far to go for an outdoor field trip. Behind a chain link fence next to their school campus at 700 E. 22nd St., they have a 2 ½-acre natural desert garden to explore.

The garden isn't new. It's been there since 1992. But in the eyes of the 297 Borton children in kindergarten, first and second grades, who are just beginning to learn about nature, it's fresh and exciting.

Second-grader Gabriel Garcia found a praying mantis egg sac on one of his trips to the garden. "It was brown and pretty small," he explained. "We had to leave it alone, but I could pick up the stick it was on. It's a bug that looks like a leaf, but it's not."

It's those kinds of first-hand observations that expand the children's knowledge beyond the classroom. "This is for the neighborhood kids who maybe don't go to the Desert Museum or out into the surrounding desert," said Betts Putnam-Hidalgo, a part-time landscaper who has volunteered many hours in the garden. "Kids can learn better if they get outside and work off their energy. Out here, kids can imagine they're animals, and they have a fuller understanding of living in nature. It's a more integrated approach using all the subjects."

The garden, named BELL (Borton Environmental Learning Lab) is also called the "bird sanctuary," and offers tranquility, away from the hubbub of the classrooms and playgrounds. Garcia particularly likes the garden pond. "It's a nice, quiet place," he said. "I don't want it be noisy all the time. I like the tires under the trees because I can sit there in the shade."

Putnam-Hidalgo chose Borton for her son, Danilo, now a second-grader, because it offered the garden for students. BELL has become another reason parents are choosing Borton for their children, said Principal Teri Melendez.

The dozen or so parent volunteers are the garden's bedrock, coming out every Wednesday to work for several hours. "It seems like this year it's taken off," said Putnam-Hidalgo. "For three years, we'd scratch our heads, trying to get the kids to come out here. We pestered the teachers, and parents helped by bringing children out when the teachers were snowed under."

Grants have helped fund garden improvements, such as the $4,000 start-up grant from the state Game and Fish Department, followed by a Tucson Community Foundation $4,000 grant. Organizers welcomed the help. It cost $14,000 alone just to put the fence around the garden.

The volunteers have never operated with a standard budget. They're creative in seeking funding sources, receiving $700 in irrigation supplies from vendors and many plants from the Sonoran Desert Nursery, Hidalgo-Putnam said. TUSD provides the water and electricity and the PTA helps buy hoses and other supplies.

Now the garden has blossomed into these distinct areas, connected by winding dirt paths.

The tortoise enclosure, now under construction, will be home to tortoises, possibly adopted from the Desert Museum.

The mesquite bosque has about 20 trees, along with desert shrubs and other plants.

The cactus garden has grown with donations from nurseries, such as a tiny saguaro that will go under a palo verde, just as it would grow naturally, Putnam-Hidalgo said. About $400 in nursery stock has been donated, such as barrel cactus, agave, prickly pear and aloe.

The pollination garden has plants that attract hummingbirds.

The stream, a popular attraction for students, is being improved.

The garden has attracted more than children. "We have a lot of rabbits out here," Putnam-Hidalgo said, "The rabbits are fat and the plants are lean."

The garden was also the site for a Discovery Day event, when parents cleaned in the morning and set up different stations in the afternoon, such as bird identification, tracking seed balls and head and neck massages. Art in the Park also was held in the garden, serving as a backdrop for the children's exhibits.

The volunteers who help in the garden also have full-time jobs, bringing their knowledge of nature with them. Martha Whitaker teaches hydrology at the University of Arizona. Her kindergarten son, Robert Leenhouts, who fancies himself an entomologist, collects insect species in the garden with his twin sister, Rachel Whitaker.

Other volunteers include Chris Brashear, a veterinarian who works all night at a clinic before his volunteer duty on Wednesdays, and Angela Barclay, who has her own environmental consulting firm. Their fellow volunteers include Mechelle Meixner, Rebecca Ballenger, Kurt Thomson and Anna Kolb.

They all agreed that children will continue to flourish in the garden they've helped create and enhance. First-grader Crystal Valdez said she looks forward to going to the palo verde tree by the stream. "They have different leaves and the trunk is colored," she said. "I can learn about trees in here." Palo verde, she explained, means "green stick."

George Ballenger likes walking on the rocks by the pond. But there's another reason that she and her friend Rachel Whitaker relish their trips to the garden. "I get to get really dirty, too," George said with a grin.