A Growing Experience : Youngsters learn a lesson in social responsibility by relandscaping the atriums at Santiago Hills Elementary School with drought-resistant plants.

IRVINE —  For several years, Genie Aguilar watched as just outside her classroom window weeds sprouted in the neglected atrium and tree roots crawled beneath the buildings at Santiago Hills School. The same things were happening in the school’s two other atriums and, as an avid gardener, Aguilar couldn’t bear to sit by and watch.

So, in January, Aguilar and two other third-grade teachers led a campaign to remove the overgrown trees and relandscape all three atriums with water-efficient plants.

The project, financed by a $350 grant from the Irvine Ranch Water District, transformed the outdoor areas into drought-resistant gardens and won a statewide water conservation award.

But more important, the project served as a lesson for the 90 third-graders who did all the designing, digging, planting and fertilizing. That lesson was one of social responsibility, said Santiago Hills principal Bobbie Mahler.

“Children in this community are very privileged and come from fine families, hard-working and successful, growing up with an achievement ethic,” she said. “What is easy to forget in this time of affluence for some and poverty for others is that we can all make a positive contribution by being actively engaged in socially responsible projects.”

Santiago Hills is one of a growing number of schools to develop a formal program for teaching social responsibility, Mahler said.

“Until recently, we were the only school at the elementary level with a formal program, but the idea has really caught on, and other schools are doing it, especially at the high school level,” she said.

At Santiago Hills, such programs have included collecting clothes for a rescue mission, picking up trash and helping the blind. But replanting the school’s three atriums is one of the students’ most ambitious projects.

The first challenge was money, but when Mahler heard about the possibility of winning a grant from the water district, she encouraged her teachers to go after it. Once that problem was solved and funds were available, the third-graders began working with horticulturist Tom Ash, environmental education coordinator for University of California Cooperative Extension.

With Ash’s help, the children decided to create three similar microclimates--native Californian, Australian and Mediterranean. In doing so, the pupils learned about not only horticulture, but also geography.

“When we first began talking about the Mediterranean (it) was like talking about outer space,” Aguilar said. “The kids said, ‘Where’s that?’ ”

As the project evolved, Aguilar and third-grade teachers Max Cantu and Karen Eckelbarger developed lesson plans around it for science, art and history.

“The kids made terrariums, and we did a science unit with that,” Eckelbarger said. “And we planted the terrariums in plastic soft-drink bottles, so they also got a lesson in recycling.”

In addition, an art segment in Aguilar’s class showed how much French Impressionist Claude Monet’s work was influenced by plants, while a history lesson covered the use of plants throughout time.

“The project also taught the children how to research because they had to research all the plants from the different areas,” Aguilar said. “And they did a lot of writing.”

They wrote about New Zealand flax, kangaroo paw and grevillea bushes, all of which were chosen for the Australian garden.

“We picked Australia and the Mediterranean because (in Southern California) we have similar type of growing conditions,” Aguilar said. “We researched each area and made a list of plants. Then we went to the nursery to see what they had.”

After the plants were selected and purchased, the kids had to prepare the soil and take care of the plants. They learned gardening is hard work.

The newly landscaped atriums have become a teaching and learning environment for the entire 630-pupil school, according to Aguilar.

“These atriums were designed as teaching spaces originally, but had not been used,” she said. “They were planted with the wrong kinds of plants, which died, and the atriums were just dirt and looked terrible.”

Although the new plants have been in the ground only a few months, Aguilar said the children are constantly pointing out to her how much everything has grown.

“It will take a couple of years before the areas are lush,” she said. “But these kids are going to come back as adults and say, ‘What happened to those gardens? Are they still there?’ ”

They will be if the social responsibility program continues at Santiago Hills.

As these pupils grow up and move on to junior high school, other “gardeners” will come in and take their place. And all will learn an important lesson about the environment, according to Aguilar.

“They’ll learn to be responsible for our environment and to be drought-conscious. If we want to have a nice place for these children to grow up in, they are going to have to take responsibility. We have not done as good a job taking care of their world as we hope they will of ours in our old age. As adults, they’ll be more aware. They’ll know that to have something that looks attractive, you’ve got to work for it.”

Aguilar believes that the children can also teach their parents something. The school held a parents’ night so that the third-graders could show off their gardens and share what they learned with the community. As the kids chattered on about English lavender, rosemary, statice and Australian tea trees, Aguilar watched with pride.

“The parents were amazed the kids knew so much,” she said.