Beyond the Lab | 2026
Escalante Garden Lending Library and Afterschool Programming
Five students - Rocio Rivas, Nicole Oster, Emma Ellexson, Samantha George, and Johnathan Slaughter from the Fall 2025 Class Justice Through School Garden offered by Humanities Lab began this work as a class project focused on rethinking how food systems can support sustainability and human flourishing. The project grew from a shared recognition that while small-scale farms and community-based food initiatives offer powerful models for sustainable food sourcing, their insights and impacts often remain limited to the farm itself. Students set out to explore how desert ecosystems, hands-on learning, and creative interventions could help translate these lessons into more accessible, community-centered outcomes.
Through the Beyond the Lab program, Emma Ellexson and Samantha George are extending their original class project beyond the semester. Building on relationships with local farms and community collaborators, this next phase deepens documentation, reflection, and engagement, with the goal of turning course-based learning into sustained, real-world impact that strengthens connections between food education, place-based knowledge, and community well-being.
The project is supported by faculty mentors Teresa Foulger, Professor in the Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation, and Julie Anand, Professor in the School of Art. Guided by principles of reciprocity and community accountability, the work remains flexible and responsive to community priorities.
Scroll below to learn more about the team.
The Challenge
The Escalante Community Garden is located in the heart of a vibrant, multigenerational neighborhood in South Phoenix, yet it remains underused and disconnected from the community it was meant to serve. Despite its proximity to Thew Elementary School and the Escalante Multigenerational Center, community participation in the garden is consistently low.
In a predominantly low-income area with limited access to green space, this lack of engagement is a missed opportunity. Green spaces play a critical role in supporting physical health, mental well-being, and environmental connection—especially in neighborhoods where access to nature is scarce.
The challenge is not the absence of community, but the absence of meaningful, culturally relevant ways for residents to engage with the garden. Without intentional programs and shared experiences, the garden cannot fulfill its potential as a space for learning, storytelling, and connection.
Original Outcome | Escalante Garden Lending Library and Afterschool Programming
The project addresses low community engagement by transforming the Escalante Community Garden into a space for shared storytelling, creativity, and learning. This is achieved through two connected outcomes: a community-created storybook and an afterschool garden program. Community members across generations are invited to share stories centered on love, loss, and lived experience. These stories are compiled into a printed book housed in the garden’s lending library, which is redesigned and repainted using artwork created by students from Thew Elementary School. Storytelling, reading, writing, and visual art are used as accessible entry points for participation.
In parallel, an afterschool garden program invites local children into the space to learn about nature while strengthening reading and writing skills. Together, these outcomes establish the garden as a welcoming third space, one that centers arts and humanities, supports intergenerational connection, and encourages sustained community engagement.
Meet the Team
Emma Ellexson is a sophomore undergraduate student pursuing a BA in Sustainability and a BA in Spanish Literature and Culture. With her family having been in the Southwestern United States for centuries and her growing up in Phoenix, she has always felt deeply connected to the local desert landscape. As a student, her experiences in civic organizing and engagement, climate advocacy, and community-centered event planning have shaped her interests towards social and cultural approaches to sustainability. She is excited to build upon her previous experience gardening and coordinating fun sustainability crafts and activities for elementary students throughout this semester!
Samantha George is a junior pursuing a B.S in Sustainability and a certificate in Sustainable Food Systems. Her passion for sustainability lies in the justice space, especially in addressing food insecurity. She wants to continue fighting food insecurity through building a more supportive and sustainable agricultural system. As a sustainability student, she’s been involved in political activism, especially around fighting hunger. In addition, her volunteer experiences teaching art classes and painting murals at elementary schools gave her a passion for community building and education. She’s excited to be part of the lab and continue making an impact in her community.
Impact
The Escalante Garden Lending Library and Afterschool Programming project strengthened community engagement by transforming the garden into a more visible and welcoming space for learning, creativity, and environmental exploration. Through the development of nine afterschool lesson toolkits, students introduced local youth to topics such as biodiversity, native plants, sustainability, and nature connectedness while using the garden as an outdoor classroom. The project also revitalized the garden's lending library through a collaborative design process involving students from Thew Elementary School, creating a colorful and accessible community resource that reflects the interests and experiences of local children.
By partnering with the Escalante Community Garden, Thew Elementary School, the Escalante Multigenerational Center, and community volunteers, the project fostered stronger connections between youth, educators, and community members. The work demonstrated how public green spaces can serve as sites for environmental education, creativity, and community-building while providing lasting resources that support continued engagement beyond the duration of the project.
Final Reflections
Final Outcome
The project transformed the Escalante Community Garden into a more welcoming space for learning, storytelling, and community connection through the creation of a community storytelling book, revitalization of the garden’s lending library and seating area, and development of an afterschool garden program for local youth. By bringing together seniors, elementary students, community partners, and garden volunteers, the project strengthened intergenerational relationships while creating lasting resources that encourage continued engagement with the garden, environmental education, and community storytelling.