(Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, providing a way for wildlife to navigate our roadways.

(Carolyn) You don't want to see anybody get hurt, the animals in the road or have any car accidents involved because of it.

So it just became a very special thing to get involved in, to be part of it.

(Tom) Growing healthy food and community at Las Milpitas Farm.

(Lupe) You come over and you just don't know who you're going to talk to, but everybody's willing to talk to you.

They teach you everything.

(Tom) Connect to nature at the very cool Sky School.

(Mackenzie) It's one of the really cool things that I enjoy about the summit is it's always changing.

And so the way that you approach science is always changing.

And the questions that, you know students are interested in are always changing.

(Tom) And poet Logan Phillips reads from his poem, "Reckon."

(Logan) Five changer killed turntable, yes, sure.

Video killed the radio star.

♪ Upbeat Music (Tom) Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

And today we're joining you from the Historic Y Building here in the West University neighborhood.

This beautiful building was commissioned by the Young Women's Christian Association way back in 1930.

It was designed by Annie Graham Rockfellow who was one of a few practicing female architects in Tucson at the time.

The campus has long been a place for integration and acceptance for Southern Arizonans.

The former swimming pool was a place where off-duty Black soldiers could swim and relax during World War II, while most United Service Organization events were still segregated.

It was also one of the first places in town that would rent rooms to Black women.

Today, the Historic Y is home to many nonprofit arts, education, humanitarian, and environmental organizations.

One of those is the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection and they are featured in this next story.

Around the world, animals are being driven from their native habitats and separated into smaller pockets by roads.

But here in Arizona, wildlife corridors are helping animals by allowing them to travel away from those dangerous traffic conditions.

Next, you'll see a couple of examples where volunteers meet to work on the land that makes a way for wildlife.

♪ TENSE PIANO (Carianne) Hi everybody, welcome back to the Wildlife Crossing crew for our monthly volunteer gig.

We're stacking up a lot of plants out there and part of what we're going to be doing today is really continuing to get these plants off to a good start with their establishment periods.

♪ UPLIFTING GUITAR ♪ Feel free to overachieve.

(Carolyn) Right now we're standing on one of our wildlife crossings that have been built with regional transportation funds over the last almost 20 years.

♪ UPLIFTING GUITAR CONTINUES This is the only overpass in the Sonoran Desert thus far, but we have underpasses throughout the region to help wildlife get through to different protected preserves.

♪ UPLIFTING MUSIC There's three miles of funnel fence up and down on each side.

So they're high enough that deer can't jump over and then at the bottom we have finer mesh so rodents and snakes and such can't get through.

When the Game and Fish Department put these video cameras in a couple months after these were built, they really thought it was going to take a couple years to get the animals trained to go down the funnel fence and find.

There were deer almost waiting for this bridge to be built.

I mean they were just bringing their whole families over like right away.

We have seen an average of 2,000 crossings a month in the nine years since this has been built.

We've got over 40,000 animals between the underpass and the overpass that cross.

It's incredible.

We have the Catalina Mountains here, which is Forest Service Land in Catalina State Park, so that's protected.

Once the animals have crossed the bridge, there is about 5,000 acres of open space over here heading straight towards the next mountain range, the Tortolita Mountains.

And then on the west of that is the Tucson Mountains, which is where you see Saguaro National Park, again, protected land Tucson Mountain Park, and then on to the Tohono O'odham Nation.

So, this is a lot of undeveloped open space, most of it protected.

So if we can have the entire three ranges reconnected, it would be a big boon for wildlife.

These open spaces and habitat preserves get isolated, and so a lot of animals, they don't even want to go near the road because of the noise and the lights, so they stay in their bedroom, so to speak.

And so this helps to keep the genetic pool healthy.

(Carianne) And these are just perfect sized.

Sometimes we're going to get lucky with our soil, it's going to be soft, and we can just push these right in.

My name is Carianne Funicelli, and I'm the owner of Strategic Habitat Enhancements, and I focus on native plant materials, and my background is in vegetation ecology, botany, and habitat restoration.

I'm looking to accomplish an assemblage of plants that is native, appropriate to the site, and useful for wildlife.

And a lot of times when we hear about restoration, it puts our mind in a place where we're harkening back to restoring something from the past.

But that's pretty - it's becoming more and more of an outdated way to think about restoration.

We're really restoring for the future, so choosing species that are appropriate now and will be successful now, and that we can expect will be successful into the future as well because things are changing pretty fast.

One day, real soon, this one will be as large as that one.

The climate, the weather patterns are becoming more and more intense.

We have very wet years, very dry years, super hot years, lots of drought.

We want to be sure that we're not choosing species that are on the wimpier end of being able to handle all of those harsh conditions.

(Riley) I'm studying environmental science, so I get notified about volunteering activities in the area So I heard about this, I worked with my schedule.

And I like helping out the environment, so I decided to come today.

I think projects like this are great, you know, they're actually doing something instead of just like making a proposal or talks about something.

And volunteering, you know, I love volunteering, I grew up volunteering, so I try to when I can.

(Virgil) I don't have a environmental background.

I'm an engineer, both chemical and software, but this work gives me hope that we can continue to keep the planet alive and growing and diverse and all its elements for everyone.

(Carolyn) This bridge was built in 2015, as was the underpass that's a mile south of here.

♪ ENIGMATIC PIANO ♪ The underpass is between two housing developments and the people there were a little nervous when we talked about bringing wildlife through there, you know, but once they actually started experiencing it, people are so supportive.

(Pat) My husband and I are members of the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection, and we've been involved with them for several years since we've moved here.

Came from Michigan, 10 years, roughly 10 years ago, and we moved here because both of our children had moved out here, and we came out to visit and just fell in love with it.

(Henry) It is really nice living this close to the underpass because our house is this one with the solar panels on it right here.

Easy walking distance so we can see it from over the fence in the backyard and so on.

We just love it.

I usually will have a day going on where we're volunteering and watering or saturating plants at the bridge and the underpass.

I'll fill the buckets up at the house, bring them out here and either as a group or myself will just come down and water some of the plants to saturate the ground a little bit.

No irrigation at all other than what comes down from the clouds.

♪ ENIGMATIC JAZZ (Pat) Waking up every day to look at the Catalina Mountains and all the wildlife that we see is just absolutely spectacular.

(Henry) It's a gopher snake, about four foot long.

They're non-poisonous- mostly feed on rodents and so on.

They're a good snake, good neighbor.

(Pat) It helps us forget about all the fishing and all the water in the lakes that we used to partake in back home.

♪ UPLIFTING PIANO I'm very thrilled actually with the success of the initial seeding.

These grasses are amazing and we have about five species that really came through from that seed mix and have provided those initial needs of cover, erosion control, and it's quite beautiful as well.

Now is the time that we come in and be like, "Okay, well what's missing?

What else can we bring?

What other kinds of botanical diversity can we incorporate here that are going to amp up the values even more?"

Because this is a really unique and special spot.

♪ SOOTHING SYNTH (Pat) You don't want to see anybody get hurt, the animals in the road, or have any car accidents involved because of it.

So it just became a very special thing to get involved in, to be part of it.

(Carolyn) And there's still some wildlife, some roadkill, but it's so rare.

The coalition formed in 1998 really to protect species and to protect habitat.

We have morphed into really looking at wildlife connectivity as we find out that even when you have large protected preserves for wildlife, if they get isolated, then it really doesn't work for animals.

So we've really been working on trying to piece together a connected preserve.

(Tom) Las Milpitas Community Farm is a six acre parcel located on the banks of the Santa Cruz River.

This initiative of the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona provides material, education, and support for local residents to grow healthy food for themselves.

(Armeda) Come on.

(Armeda) Aca tenemos la cosecha que hemos cosechado.

Betabel, quelite blanco, kale, al quelites, cilantro.

Ya tenemos como un año que estamos viniendo, nosotros le ayudamos.

Y ahora vine y traje a mis hijos porque traje a mis nietos y les gustó.

Y les dieron una tierrita, y van a sembrar ellos también.

(Chris) We've been here for 13 years.

Our goal was to have a place for people to grow food for themselves.

I think one of the things that makes our food bank unique is that we give out food boxes just like all food banks do, but we also are looking at some of the root causes of hunger.

Having a place where people can learn to grow food for themselves, put that power of food production back in their own hands, is important to us.

Thirteen years ago we did a whole bunch of visioning meetings to try and figure out what the community wanted this space to be.

And people wanted to see garden space.

They wanted to see native trees and shrubs, they wanted to see young and old people working together.

So we took all those ideas and put them into a master plan.

We have 75 garden plots that are available for people to adopt, grow food for themselves.

We do gardening workshops and education, there's peer-to-peer education that happens.

(Ernesto) We're going to be teaching the community the nixtamalization process of corn to make masa so we can make tortillas.

We started growing here in Las Milpitas and we discovered all the joy that it brought into our family's lives and then also all the abundance that the earth gave to us, all the plants, all the seeds.

So we wanted to share that knowledge and joy with the community so that everybody else can be as happy as we are.

(Kid) Good.

[ BIRDS CHIRPING ] (Chris) This is our market grower area and this is for folks who are interested in selling at the markets.

[ SAWING WOOD CRACKS ] (Arthur) Ok, I'm done with the cutting.

[ LAUGHS ] I came from West Africa, Liberia.

I was not a gardener.

My dad was a farmer.

For the past nine years, I can say, the African vegetables to get them here in Arizona it's difficult.

We have to send money to Minnesota, send money to Rhode Island to get just a few.

That's how I started growing my pepper, okra, bitter ball, that one I grow here a lot, and kitchari.

[ LAUGHS ] We sell some and we eat some.

(Producer) And does it feel like home sometimes when you taste those?

A lot, yeah.

[ CHUCKLES ] (Kid) So slimy.

(Adult) Yeah, but it's cool.

(Aden) Gross?

(Marcy) Yeah.

My nephew here, he was my inspiration about gardening because he's been doing it since you're four, right?

(Aden) Mm-hmm.

(Producer) How'd you get into it?

(Aden) Ummm.

When I went to preschool, they had a garden there and then I guess, I just fell in love with it.

(Lupe) You walk in and there's children and we all get to know the children so we all watch out for them so they're free.

You come over and you just don't know, who you are going to talk to.

But everybody's willing to talk to you.

They teach you everything.

And now that I've learned, now I can teach somebody else.

(Tom) To find a Spanish language description and captions for this story and many others from our archives, just head to azpm.org/ ArizonaIllustrated.Espanol The University of Arizona's Sky School integrates science and engineering while fostering a deep connection to nature and a sense of place.

Students travel up to the summit of Mount Lemmon and they'll spend one to three nights doing fieldwork right around the Steward Observatory Sky Center.

[Music] (Rob) Sky School's program takes K-12 students to the Summit of Mount Lemmon to explore the ecology of the Sky Islands in southern Arizona.

The official summit is that white dot right there.

We work with graduate students from the U of A and from ASU, and while students are here, they investigate any topic of their choosing, and our instructors help them to facilitate their own research project about the ecology of the Sky Island.

Today is a special day because we have an eclipse, and what that means is that the students are going to be able to view the eclipse through our solar telescope and be able to see details of the sun, details of the eclipse that most people don't get to.

(Mackenzie) Oh man, a total solar eclipse for starting Sky School off.

The main thing we like to teach students here is science research through learning.

How can they apply principles of science in their lives, even if they don't do research at a university?

(Alexander) What we're really teaching at Sky School, it's really a mentality, it's a mindset, that everything around you enables you to study the natural world and to situate yourself within a complex system and learn about it through experience.

There are very few schools like this, and especially on a place like Mount Lemmon, this is the greatest classroom that's ever existed.

(Rob) The students today are joining us from Sunnyside High School in Tucson, and they will stay with us for anywhere from one to three nights.

(Alexander) The first day is always a matter of getting settled and acclimatizing to this new environment.

A lot of the students have never been to a place like this.

[Music] (Mackenzie) Today we'll be studying with a hike, just kind of exploring the summit, letting them get a feel of where they'll be for the next couple days, and then we'll do some skill builders, we call them.

Before we continue down the road, we're going to talk a little bit about the geology, specifically of the Tucson Basin, but also just Mount Lemmon and the surrounding.

So what you're seeing here are you're seeing a bunch of different... Well, Mount Lemmon is a very special spot.

I mean, just looking around at the snow, you can tell that it's a very different environment than the kids usually live in, down in the desert floor.

It's one of the really cool things that I enjoy about the summit is it's always changing.

And so the way that you approach science is always changing.

And the questions that the students are interested in are always changing.

(Alexander) The hike affords us with a great opportunity to look and see how the ecosystem changes when we alter our landscape position.

Even going down the mountain just a little bit, we can notice differences and think about how we can scale those up.

And what I want you to do at your own pace is take some steps closer, closer and closer to the root system, to the point where you can see the root.

Those first few moments of discovery, those first few moments of, "Oh, this is how the plants relate to the soil and how the soil relates to the climate.

It's also connected in this interesting way.

Why is that?"

Watching students sort of discover that for the first time, there's something magical about it.

(Student) Oh, I want to to see a leaf.

(Alexander) Grab a leaf.

(Rob) Students will develop and implement their own research projects.

Once they have a question established, then they go out and collect data that they need to answer that question.

[Music] So what you're going to do is you're going to select a tree somewhere over here.

It can be any tree you like.

I want them to know that they are competent to practice science.

I want them to know that they're capable of doing science.

I want them to know that they are able to learn about the natural world using their senses, using scientific instruments.

(Student) Counter-clockwise out.

(Alexander) When students are up here, they look around them and they realize that everything from the trees to the rocks to the soil are their teachers.

And when they leave Sky School, I'd like to think that they go out into the world and carry the same mindset, that if they have a question, that they can pursue that.

(Mackenzie) I think it's very important for students to have the skills to be able to detect the truth for themselves and that innate curiosity to make sure that they are able to continue learning throughout their entire lives.

I think lifelong learning is one of the most important things that we teach here.

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Poet Logan Phillips grew up in the fabled western town of Tombstone, Arizona.

His poem "Reckon" looks at the many contradictions of being raised in this mythical environment.

And it won the 2021 Academy of American Poets Prize.

Dust sucked to saliva turns to adobe slop.

Then hardens, a mud house of the mouth, a set of first words, sun fingers beam through Arizona live oak leaves, piercing, I cry, laugh, first memory.

And I was baby me, learning to walk and speak.

Young mother and young father, the only young ones here in the boom town so long busted.

They left Tucson and bought in Tombstone, a set of almost ruins.

A wood house and a mud house, both sliding down an arroyo filled with historic trash, glittered purple glass, couldn't leave a marble on the kitchen table without it rolling off to the corner of the room, something in the earth pulling everybody to it.

Some law, some greed, some metal down there buried in the mineral rights.

But understand, even young father was prospecting prospects looking to strike it.

Middle class.

Assay a paycheck and see what shook out.

So he took a job at the courthouse museum.

History, the only thing that paid anything.

A couple dirt blocks away, Earp still circled the OK Corral in gun fights, gun fights, gun fights endless iterations of a story, a killing people paid to see.

Look, young mother and young father tried forever before baby me.

Everything was bust back before their little baby boom.

And then they did what new parents do, repeated what they'd been told and acted out the roles of the drama they found themselves in, pretended to know before they knew and learned to know what they felt they should have already knew, put baby me on the back of a bike and road down Toughnut to the courthouse museum, over to Allen Street to the Birdcage Theater and on back to the mud house in circles and circles the sun sets, shooting shimmer through bruised rain curtains closing.

Exhibit!

Earp killed Clanton.

Huckleberry killed Ringo.

Moving Picture killed Touring Troupe.

Train killed Wagon.

Interstate killed Train.

Oregon Trail killed Class Time.

Typhoid killed the settler.

Boys killed their tears.

Cowboys killed Poetry.

Army recruiters killed Time.

Circle K killed Little General.

Torta killed the sandwich.

VHS killed Betamax.

Five Changer killed Turntable.

Yes, sure.

Video killed the radio star.

Selfie killed the Daguerreotype.

Trappers killed Beaver.

Border Wall killed Jaguar.

Earthquake killed the steamboat.

Headcut killed La Cienega.

Subdivision killed the Foothills.

Influencers killed the barrio.

City fathers killed Apaches.

Tucson police killed Carlos.

Border Patrol killed José Elena.

Minute Men killed Brisenia.

Adults killed children.

Bisbee killed Tombstone.

Sierra Vista killed Bisbee.

Reenactment killed history.

And tell me who kills who next?

(Tom) Thank you for joining us from here at The Historic Y Building in West University.

I'm Tom McNamara.

We'll see you next week for Arizona Illustrated.