This preserve, in conjunction with the school district and a wildlife conservation group, put together this charming preserve which highlights desert living. Project Preserve is a 20 acre outdoor classroom that is used to promote environmental and cultural education within the Litchfield Elementary School District. Project Preserve has several stations, including a simulated Hohokam village, agriculture, a desert wash, upland, and a wetland with desert pupfish. All of this is behind the school yard fence and is not readily accessible. However, you can look through the fence and see parts of it. For that reason, we combined both project listings here.
1) Tony Kellems agreed to plan and implement the project to establish an endangered Desert Tortoise habitat. The Desert Tortoise is often rescued by Fish and Game from injuries, or illegal ownership by people. When this happens, Fish and Game adopts out the tortoises to be raised in protective habitats, carefully overseen by that department. Tony consulted with the Arizona Game and Fish Department (G&F) and the Phoenix Zoo to draw plans for the habitat. The plans include two burrows to allow for the possibility of a second adoption. Tony's Boy Scout Troop built the habitat in late summer 1998. The Scott Libby fifth graders and the NRCD held a welcoming party for the tortoise on November 9, 1998.
The website explaining this project. 2) A Hohokam pithouse built by an unnamed Eagle Scout in troop 90 for his badge. The Hohokam were the native people in the area prior to the arrival of the Spanish. They built a specific type of home called a pithouse. The house has a cooking place, a chimney and a walkway. It is two feet under the ground. The deeper in the ground you go the cooler it is because of the moisture in the soil. A pithouse is made of caliche, blocks, twigs, large branches and straw. Each piece of the house is put together carefully so that it doesn't fall. In the middle of the house, there is a pole to support its weight.