SAN ANTONIO – The Sotomayor Wildcats and Clark Cougars might be tackling the grass for the KSAT Pigskin Classic, but students at Clark High School are tackling the garden.
A group of students have spent the last year creating a sustainability garden in the middle of campus.
“I think it’s pretty important ... just looking away from all the stress and anxiety of school and your phones, just to sit down for a second and appreciate nature,” Rylan Cobb, a Clark High School freshman, said.
Sophia Castillo agrees.
“I think that it definitely can be therapeutic to kind of get your hands dirty and do something and be preoccupied and just, I feel like that’s a really good thing that I actually didn’t realize how helpful it was until I did it,” Castillo said.
The students work on their mental health while getting their hands dirty, leveling the ground, digging in the dirt and learning the importance of planting native sustainable plants that help out pollinators, right in the middle of Clark High School’s campus.
The Earth Club and other student organizations worked together last year to build the community garden after receiving a $5,000 Eco Scholar grant from the city.
Gifted and talented coordinator Shelley Beck said the goal is to bring students back to nature.
“Gardening is a great meditative and mindfulness activity and with our students ... so focused on screens, it’s a great opportunity to physically be in the moment, to enjoy nature, to have your hands in the dirt, to be doing something and interacting with each other, with the earth, and not focused on what’s happening on their phones and in their own head,” Beck said.
Student organizations take turns maintaining the garden, and environmental science teacher Annette Cobb said her goal is to have an outdoor classroom at the garden in the future.
“I call it a nature walk. We’ll come out and we’ll make observations, and they try to identify the plants and stuff like that,” Cobb said.
Castillo is proud that this is a project students will benefit from for years.
“I’m really excited to see how it expands and how I think this, especially knowing how hard we worked on it, that it will last for a long time,” Castillo said. “And I hope that many students at Clark, for generations to come, get to enjoy it.”
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