Published: April 10, 2008 10:20 pm         

First lady speaks to Dallas students about nature program

DALLAS — First lady Laura Bush visited with children at a Dallas charter school Thursday about a program that teaches kids about nature through planting and gardening projects.

Speaking to students at the Williams Preparatory School, Bush told the group that she was happy to be in Dallas and that she and the president will move back here when they leave the White House.

"President Bush and I will be moving back to Dallas," she said, noting that they'd lived here about 14 years ago, before George Bush became Governor of Texas.

Before her speech, she watched as some sixth-graders planted seeds, learned about pollination and "shook a shrub" to learn about nature by observing what falls out.

"This is fun isn't it. What did you all find?" she asked the group who had investigated the shrub. Their findings included roly-polys, berries, ants, a caterpillar and a key.

Pointing to a small bush with a red flower ringed in yellow, she told the group of children studying pollination that the flowers were called "firewheels." ''We have fields of this on our ranch," she said.

Bush said during her speech that the First Bloom program, a National Park Foundation program she launched last fall, carries on the legacy of another first lady, the late Lady Bird Johnson. Johnson, an environmentalist devoted to preserving wildflowers and native plants, died last July.

"I hope you learn to love our native land just like Lady Bird Johnson did," she said.

The purpose of the program is to give students who might not have the chance otherwise to get experience planting and gardening in their neighborhoods and national parks.

The program is launching this spring in five cities: Austin, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. A spokeswoman for the National Park Foundation said that Boys and Girls Clubs in the pilot cities are participating in the program. She said that Williams is the first school to participate.

The students at the school not far from downtown Dallas will plant seeds into compostable cups. Then the seeds will be planted at a new garden being designed by the students and in the First Bloom native plant gardens at the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park in Austin.

"First Bloom extends beyond park boundaries right into our own backyards," she said.

The National Park Foundation, the sole charitable partner of the National Park Service, said that a grant will allow the school to take the students on a field trip to the LBJ Ranch.

Sixth-grader Azucena Briones was impressed by Bush.

"She's just so amazing because she cares about the environment," Briones said.