My hope is to turn a bit of open space near my classroom into a "learning" garden full of native plants and animals/insects which can survive in the drought conditions we are experiencing in Southern California. My students and I wanted to encourage our school population to see the benefit of growing native species which can use water efficiently and that these plants can make our school landscape beautiful without relying on huge amounts of water.
My students will improve upon the garden space as it is right now. They are visiting the Conejo Valley Botanical Garden to take a tour of the native species growing there and to get advice from their expert gardeners. They will be researching what butterflies and plants are native to our local area and make a list of what could be possible to include in our garden. They will meet with the school district's gardener to find out the water restrictions and get advice on how to best use the water designated for this spot in the most appropriate way. Once this is done, they will be working with our school's parent-run EcoTeam to continue to transform this budding garden into a living, learning, native species garden.
