Barelas elementary school students get a taste of the country life during Friday 'agriculture day'

Apr. 19—Simply put, kids played with kids on Friday.

The catch?

The latter were of the goat variety.

Dolores Gonzales Elementary School students cuddled with farm animals — goats, chickens and rabbits — planted seeds and learned about pollination on Friday for the school's agriculture day, a highly anticipated event at the Barelas neighborhood school.

"I think they're very friendly," third grader Mateo Gabriele told the Journal about the young caprine guests in his schoolyard.

The older, horned goats? Not so much — they're the "most aggressive," Mateo said.

As they floated from activity to activity, students and their teachers wandered around the schoolyard, some sporting cowboy hats and leather boots. Children squealed with delight as goats ate from their hands. Or they crowded around rabbits, petting and giving them names like Graham Cracker.

"He's so puffy," Scarlett Torres, another third grader, said after cutting through the crowd to pet one of the rabbits.

Henry Stalvey, a freshman involved in a Bernalillo County 4-H program who was presenting for the agriculture day, said it's cool to teach kids in the city about life in the country.

"It's fun. I like it," he said. As he spoke, he cradled a chicken, which moments before was perched on his shoulder.

Aiden Stalvey, who despite only being there with his family as presenters, seemed to bond with a young Easter egger hen he named Edna.

"She's very calm around me," he said.

After meeting the animals, students could move on to a seed-planting workshop adjacent to the school garden. They decorated degradable pots with paint and markers, then filled them with soil and seeds of their choice to then take home.

Michelle Archuleta, a third grader, said she was learning the skills to plant a garden full of all the sweet fruits she could want.

"I'm learning about the way that plants grow, and how you make the plants in the soil," she said. "... If I want to, later on when I'm older, I could garden."

The maestro of Dolores Gonzales' agriculture day was Theresa Sandoval, a teacher who said she built the school's garden from a shovel up and runs an after-school gardening club for students.

The school garden seems boundless in the number of different plants and crops it grows — from herbs like sage and parsley to vegetables like lettuce and artichokes. Much of it is funded by grants, including from the community and the Albuquerque Public Schools Education Foundation, Sandoval said.

Academics are deeply rooted in the garden, Sandoval said, from teaching students math to science. But some of the biggest lessons they learn while gardening, she said, include self-understanding and cooperation with others.

"They work as a team out there," she said.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, and after so much time stuck behind computer or phone screens, students in general have struggled with emotional problems in school.

But being out in nature, touching dirt, touching plants and experiencing failure — sometimes, plants die — helps students experience the real world and work through their issues, Dolores Gonzales staff say.

"It can be a place of healing," Principal Lori Stuit said. "But I think for all students, being outside and having that sensory connection, and getting grounded in reality, is so important because a lot of their world is virtual."