Lorie Cavalli

My love and appreciation for the natural land and love of water began as a child in Northern California when I would explore the stream behind my house, swim in Lake Berryessa, skip rocks on the San Pablo Bay, send paper boats down the Truckee River and watch seagulls fly over the Pacific. We moved to the Iowa prairie and the great Missouri flowed through our town. Now in Flagstaff, my family and I are growing native, harvesting rainwater for our organic gardens, channeling runoff into rain gardens, and building up a pond and rock stream fed by rainwater to support the biodiversity of our land. We have a good well with delicious drinking water and we appreciate the snowstorms and rains that recharge our aquifer to sustain us.

I have grown an appreciation for the biodiversity of the Colorado Plateau and an understanding of our role and responsibility relating to water and water conservation. Environmental Education and conservation programs such as the Arizona Project WET expand the knowledge of the learners with outdoor and contextual learning experiences which strengthens their understanding of nature and our local environment.