Courtyard Experimental Gardens at Flagstaff High School

The AP Biology program at Flagstaff program at Flagstaff High School provides students with opportunities to participate in service-learning projects, conduct experimental garden work, and interact with community partners.  Nearly two and a half years ago, we participated in our first of three five-day service-learning trips with the Grand Canyon Trust.  In partnership with the Trust, students helped install the infrastructure for the Southwest Experimental Garden Array (SEGA) sites on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  The SEGA program is a National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored experiment that makes use of an array of 12 field sites located at various elevations and facilitates climate change research on the Colorado Plateau. 

Students planting native yucca at FHS courtyard experimental garden

The first trip with the Grand Canyon Trust acted as a catalyst, to engage students in conservation issues and connect our biology program with local researchers.  As a result, we became inspired to construct three small-scale SEGA gardens in the courtyard at Flagstaff High School.  Thanks to a teacher-innovation grant awarded from the Flagstaff Unified School District Community Foundation, we were able to reach our goal.  We partnered with the Terra BIRDS, a local non-profit organization that provides teachers with design and logistical support for school garden programs.

The courtyard teaching gardens have become a cornerstone of the AP Biology program at Flagstaff High School.  Last May, 45 AP Biology students spent three full weeks transforming the school courtyard into an amazing educational space by removing debris, trash, and non-native vegetation, and then restoring it with native plants.  Students learned about microclimate differences and how to harness them in an experiment.  Specifically, how the differences in solar illumination within the courtyard can be used as a proxy for elevation differences to create the three experimental gardens representing different life-zones.  The ecological life-zones represented within our courtyard include:  pinyon-juniper zone, ponderosa pine-oak forests, and aspen/mixed conifer zone.  Recently, Flagstaff High School was awarded an Arizona Community Foundation grant to partner again with the Terra BIRDS to further improve and expand the experimental gardens, as well as to transform the existing pond within our courtyard into a more natural cycling wetland/pond ecosystem. 

Students measuring SW white pines at SEGA site

Our program has also partnered with researchers at Northern Arizona University (NAU).  Dr. Waring and her graduate students have presented on the combined threats of a nonnative fungus and climate change on southwestern white pines in our region.  Her study also aims to help this species survive these threats.  During our last two five-day service-learning trips with the Grand Canyon Trust, we collected initial data for Dr. Waring’s study at the three highest elevation SEGA sites.   This fall, the Waring lab donated 400 white pine seedlings for us to set-up in our high school courtyard, a small-scale replicate of her large $4.1 million NSF project that is using the SEGA field sites. When asked why she decided to collaborate with high school students by donating time and resources, Dr. Waring responded: “Connecting our youth to nature and science is the best way to build a future population that is passionate about science and caring for our environment. We need leaders who will advocate for sound forest management based on the best science, climate change mitigation, and invasive species prevention and management. I can’t think of a better way to help that process than continuing to involve the students who initially became excited about our research on a volunteer trip this spring. Regardless of the life path taken by the students, I hope they will always feel more connected to trees and nature because they learned something about this one species and the research we are doing to sustain it. The courtyard project is an amazing gift and opportunity you are providing the students; I’m just lending a small hand. I hope the students become attached to the babies, look forward to the results of the data they collect, and are a little sad every time.”

What makes this program so powerful is the focus on connection to place, education through service-learning, and interaction with community partners.  As a result, students will develop a sense of stewardship and a conservation ethic that they will be able to take with them after high school.  Here at Flagstaff High School, we look forward to continuing the high level of student engagement with community partners and student-led projects to build a strong sense of stewardship, personal involvement, and achievement.