A Desert Oasis: Keystone Park and Wetlands

Dear Mr. Ortiz' 6th grade class, "A 5,000-year old village, possibly the oldest and largest of its kind, has been discovered inside our city limits along an ancient, and rare, desert wetland. Water from the nearby Rio Grande has been seeping into this old bosque, or marsh, and serves as a resting stop for millions of birds of all types as they migrate yearly along this ancient river in the desert. Birds fill the sky at sunset every night all year long". You can see blackneck stilts, egrets, and ñYES -  hundreds of seagulls--in the desert! A group of El Pasoans are determined to help preserve Keystone. The necessary applications for funding have been approved from the Texas Department of Transportation, TEA21 Funds, and Junior League grants. Now officially protected from development, this rare desert marsh will continue to be a nesting ground. However, we still have a long way to go! We need a web site and we want your help! Students, this is a great chance to preserve our history of the desert southwest. The Keystone Foundation is comprised of parents, teachers and members of the business community who want to keep and preserve this unique and beautiful place for our children.  We want to build a Keystone Interpretive Center for you so that you can learn about our desert wetlands and its impact on the environment, and the visiting waterfowl who live and nest in our desert marsh and share it with children from all over the world. We think a web site just might be what the doctor ordered! Speaking of doctor, you will be working the New Mexico State University student-teachers and their professors to build an online database of our feathered friends. Grab your binoculars and let's go!  By the way, funds will be available to build botanical gardens, wetlands, archeological site, an interpretive center, hike and bike trails, and more but we need your help and hard work. Please help us preserve and learn to love our desert wetlands. Sincerely,  Bernie Sargent Keystone Foundation http://www.elpasogold.com/keystonepage.htm http://hp-education.nmsu.edu/davis/EDLT528/shared/keystone/keystone1.html http://yosemite.epa.gov/water/surfnote.nsf/FTsearchForm?readform&Limit=10&Query=Engaged+Learning

Authors: Michele Stafford-Levy, Shirley Davis, Albert Alvarez Ortiz, and Ellen Treadway.
Created for  Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Education Office and Friends of Fermilab and supported by the Illinois State Board of Education and the US Department of Energy.
Web Maintainer: ed-webmaster@fnal.gov
Last updated: April 15, 2001
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