SABE unveils student-built nature trail on Rio Rancho campus

A narrow strip along the southwest edge of Sandoval Academy of Bilingual Education’s parking lot has become a place where Rio Rancho children can study science, leave painted rocks and walk a trail built for their own campus. The less-than-a-tenth-of-a-mile path opened April 23 during Earth Day week, giving SABE students, staff and families a visible new space for outdoor learning.

The trail at the K-8 dual-language charter school includes a gravel walkway lined with stones, wooden stairs that connect upper and lower sections, bird feeders and student-made signs that explain how the area should be used. Student artwork is built into the space, along with trail details shaped by the children who hauled rocks, formed human chains and helped lay out the route.

Leadership Sandoval worked with SABE on the project. Craig Larsen said the trail was meant to serve as an extension of the classroom, a place where students could explore science through direct experience and connect with the environment in a more meaningful way. Nichole Wilder, one of SABE’s instructors, said the goal was to move students out of the four walls of the classroom and into a setting where they could learn by doing.

The school’s students are already seeing the trail as something that belongs to them. Emma Greenham said she felt proud to help create something that would last for future students, a sentiment that fits a project designed to outlive a single Earth Day celebration and become part of daily school life.

For Rio Rancho families, that matters beyond the ceremony. SABE identifies itself as the first kindergarten-through-8th-grade dual-language charter school in the city, teaching both Spanish and English, and its enrollment is large enough to make the campus a small educational hub in its own right. NCES lists the school at 222 students with 16.32 classroom teachers in the 2024-25 school year, while U.S. News lists 235 students and a 14-to-1 student-teacher ratio.

The trail also lines up with a broader shift in New Mexico schools toward hands-on environmental learning. The New Mexico Public Education Department says its Outdoor Learning Initiative has awarded Outdoor Learning Start-Up Grants to 27 schools and districts since 2022. In Sandoval County, where families increasingly look for schools that connect academics with real-world experience, SABE’s new path offers a practical model: a small campus feature that can support science lessons, after-school use and a stronger sense of ownership among students and neighbors.