ACADEMICS
Desert Oasis Teaching Garden

At the Desert Oasis Teaching Garden, our mission is to cultivate joy, hope, and better health by creating meaningful connections between students and their local food ecosystem. Through collaboration and hands-on experiences in the garden, we seek to foster more informed and responsible decision-makers, consumers, and stewards of the world.

A Garden Suited to Our Climate

A part of the Academy’s science department, the DOT Garden is an experiential learning garden on Albuquerque Academy’s campus that demonstrates soil health, regenerative agriculture, water conservation, and climate adaptability here in the desert Southwest. We collaborate with Academy faculty to provide hands-on activities that encourage students to engage in the garden’s diverse ecosystem. Depleted and disturbed soil is truly at the root of many of the challenges society faces, and fostering healthy soil holds many of the solutions. At the DOT Garden students learn about soil health, biodiversity, and ecosystem function while fostering a connection to the natural world.

The DOT Garden stewards two acres of land on Albuquerque Academy’s campus. It is an example of a regenerative agriculture ecosystem including a regionally adapted pollinator and wildlife habitat.

Formerly input-intensive turf grass, the DOT Garden was born in the summer of 2013 as a vision for a community-based space for experiential learning and exploration of regenerative agriculture in the face of climate change. Inspired by other school-based garden and farming projects, former science faculty member Karen Beamish and community member Karen Bentrup began investigating agricultural possibilities for the space. Taking what they learned from community leaders like ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan and rainwater harvester Brad Lancaster, as well as emerging science on soil health principles, they focused on implementing regenerative practices that unify innovative technologies with the strength of New Mexico’s diverse cultural heritage and a respect and reverence for nature and humanity.

Questions? For more information, please send an email.

Curriculum & Activities

Free Curriculum Resources

Click here to find free garden activities and lesson plans for various subjects. They have been created and used by teachers and garden staff for 6th through 12th grade, but they can be adapted for use with younger or older students.

We will continue to add new curriculum as it’s created, so be sure to check back!

Classes

The DOT Garden provides opportunities for faculty to cultivate project-based learning in all subject areas. Whether it’s exploring soil, water, and human health in sixth and seventh grades, investigating plant growth variables in ninth grade, or examining sense of place in upper-level English classes, students mature and grow with the garden throughout their time at the Academy.

Environmental Clubs

Students at Albuquerque Academy can explore environmental issues and sustainable food production by joining environmental clubs. Club students have opportunities to help maintain the garden while also organizing school-wide events promoting sustainability and awareness on campus.

Conferences

Each year club students and those in environmental-based science classes are invited to attend conferences on sustainability, agriculture, and environmental health where they learn about the latest research developments and career opportunities. Beyond attendees, our students have served as presenters, sharing their work from the DOT Garden.

Summer Interns

During the summer, Albuquerque Academy students are offered job opportunities on campus. Students selected as interns in the DOT Garden learn about production, irrigation, pest management, biodiversity, and water catchment.

Summer Classes

Working in collaboration with the Albuquerque Academy’s community summer program Think Summer, we offer elementary students the opportunity to explore the garden through their summer classes and camps. The summer program is open to children throughout the Albuquerque metro area.

Healthy Soil & Regenerative Agriculture

“Regenerative agriculture describes farming and grazing practices that, among other benefits, reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity – resulting in both carbon drawdown and improving the water cycle.”
~ The Regenerative Agriculture Initiative, California State University

At the DOT Garden, this means that we do not plow or till the soil, and we use no synthetic herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers. We also work actively to increase the above- and below-ground biodiversity of our spaces year-round, and we welcome animals into our food production ecosystem. These practices, taken together, are the soil health principles promoted by the New Mexico Department of Agriculture’s Healthy Soil Program and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Program.

Everything we do at the DOT Garden comes back to supporting the microbial life of the soil: It’s all about the soil! This soil life, in turn, supports the health and nutrient content of our plants, sequesters atmospheric carbon into the soil, and improves the water-holding capacity of our soils.

Resources

• New Mexico Healthy Soil Working Group
• It Starts with the Soil by Ray Archuleta, NRCS
• Treating the Farm as an Ecosystem by Gabe Brown, Regenerative Farmer