![\"\"](\"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Pueblo-Visits-Saguaro-National-Park.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nOn Monday, Feb. 19, Pueblo teacher Ms. Elizabeth Raizk escorted her juniors and seniors in her advanced placement environment science class on a field trip to nearby Saguaro National Park<\/a> (West) to study our desert\u2019s indigenous cacti.<\/p>\n On this trip, approximately 15 miles west of Pueblo High School, students studied different sizes of saguaros\u2014as well as to measure their heights and temperatures. Students even studied bird holes in these saguaros.<\/p>\n Raizk said, \u201cThere were four groups of six students, and each group\u2019s job was to study a different plot, each with five saguaros.\u201d<\/p>\n Students were required to hike to find their \u201cassigned\u201d saguaros, so they used a GPS and a photo log, which were helpful resources to these students.<\/p>\n Raizk said, \u201cMy students and I were outside for two hours, so after all of the hiking, we spent some time at the Visitors Center to eat lunch.\u201d<\/p>\n Senior Maria Servellon attended the field trip, and she expressed that this event ended up being a \u201cblessing\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201c[Before the trip] I was totally stressed\u2014about grades, tests and deadlines,\u201d Servellon said, \u201cso this field trip was definitely an outlet for me.\u201d<\/p>\n She added, \u201cAt first, however, I thought this would be just an average hiking trip through a land of cactus. However, my peers and I had an opportunity to conduct annual saguaro surveys and observed how certain cacti grow over time and how they measure environmental impacts. I learned that saguaros are great indicators of weather patterns and water patterns.\u201d<\/p>\n Senior Marco Madrigal also attended the field trip.<\/p>\n \u201cI very much enjoyed the experiences about this field trip\u2014especially how to measure saguaros and learn that the desert is an integral part of where we live,\u201d Madrigal said. \u201cWe definitely learn a lot more when we actually get to experience learning instead of reading about saguaros out of textbooks. I\u2019ll never forget everything I learned on this field trip.\u201d<\/p>\n Saguaro National Park (West) boasts many visitors, Raizk said, but not many native students, which Raizk think is \u201ca shame\u201d because the Park is the \u201cgrand symbol\u201d of the Sonoran Desert.<\/p>\n Saguaros should be respected by all, Raizk said, and they are especially culturally important to the Tohono O\u2019odham Nation. These Native Americans harvest ripe saguaro fruit in the spring to make wines, jams, and jellies. Saguaro wine is ritually consumed during Nawait I\u2019i, a Tohono O\u2019odham rain ceremony<\/a>.<\/p>\n Few people know that saguaros are the largest of all cactus species in the United States and can grow to more than 40 feet tall and can weigh more than a ton! Saguaros can also live to be between 100 and 200 years old. Some saguaros can grow as many as 25 \u201carms\u201d; some grow none.<\/p>\n On March 1, 1933, in the last days of his presidency, Herbert Hoover signed a proclamation that established the Saguaro National Monument, which was considered a victory for both botanists and boosters in Arizona who had worked for years to protect this species. Most importantly, in 1961, at the urging of the people of Tucson and Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall, President John F. Kennedy added 25 square miles of splendid cactus lands in the Tucson Mountains to the Monument.<\/p>\n Finally, after setting aside vast areas as wilderness, Congress elevated Saguaro to \u201cNational Park\u201d<\/em> status in 1994.<\/p>\n Raizk said, \u201cThe desert is a piece of all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Getsemani Cazares On Monday, Feb. 19, Pueblo teacher Ms. Elizabeth Raizk escorted her juniors and seniors in her advanced placement environment science class on a field trip to nearby Saguaro National Park (West) to study our desert\u2019s indigenous cacti. On this trip, approximately 15 miles west of Pueblo High School, students studied different sizes … Continue reading Science Class Visits Park, Studies Saguaros<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[321,18,136],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pA2u4-Nn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3061"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3063,"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3061\/revisions\/3063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pueblowarriors.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}