Among Ernest Righetti High School’s boxy buildings, gated boundaries, and slabs of cold concrete that pave the way to and from each classroom, there lies a budding garden.
Its plants are small and just beginning to grow, but the varying wildflowers are already adorned with red and purple blossoms, butterflies and hummingbirds and students frequent the spot, and the corridor surrounding the garden smells of fresh lavender and sage.
Best of all, the garden doubles as an outdoor science classroom.
The garden, a project that has been in the works for nearly three years, will provide space for students to observe plants that are native to the area, study factors that impact outdoor ecosystems, monitor pollinators, and collect and share scientific data as part of Righetti’s new career technical education pathway (CTE) in environmental resources.
The pathway launched last school year, according to Rebecca Wingerden, one of the two science teachers at Righetti who helped build the garden and implement its environmental resources program.
“We’re hoping to make kids more aware and get them connected and interested locally, and then hopefully globally,” Wingerden said. “So that way we’ll be sending better thinkers and problem solvers out into the world.”
The garden’s construction–which included pouring a concrete trail, removing a large tree, installing a drip irrigation system, and planting several native plant species–cost $16,000, according to the district. Wingerden said the project was paid for by CTE funding that was made available to the school largely because of the newly implemented environmental resources pathway.
The idea to build a garden and opportunity to start a new CTE program came at about the same time a few years ago, Wingerden said.
The space the garden now occupies was once home to some basic landscaping that administrators had planned to remove, along with several other greenery spaces on campus, in an effort to cut maintenance costs. The spot is visible from Wingerden’s classroom, and it’s near a preschool program that’s run on campus, so Wingerden said she and her students were sad to hear that it might be ripped out.
Just as Wingerden and fellow science teacher Laura Branch were working to develop the environmental resources program, Wingerden said they and their students came up with a plan to save the space. They proposed the outdoor classroom to administration, and they’ve been working to find funding and align the garden’s possible uses with the CTE pathway ever since.
Although Wingerden said she and Branch are still hoping to install fencing and placards for each species of plant, the garden was mostly completed in September, and students will be using it for class for the first time this coming spring semester.
Through the pathway and the garden, Wingerden said students will be mimicking long-term data collection projects she and Branch do each summer in the Amazon rainforest with the Educators Academy, an organization that provides ongoing trainings for teachers of all kinds.
Through the Peru-based Amazon Conservatory for Tropical Studies, Wingerden said she and Branch track environmental changes in the rainforest using temperature gauges, water collection, soil tests, and camera traps that record animals as they enter the area and trip the cameras’ sensors. Students at Righetti will do all those things in the garden, Wingerden said.
She and Branch already have their own camera trap to set up outside. An opossum is rumored to live near the garden, according to Branch, and rats have been known to roam campus.
“We’ll see what we find,” she said.
Staff Writer Kasey Bubnash writes School Scene each week. Information can be sent to the Sun via mail, fax, or email at mail@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 1-7, 2018.
