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Your Living Lab and Learning Center

From water harvesting to lush food forests, the Living Lab is your community educational resource for regenerative desert living.

Visitors of all ages are invited to explore sustainability practices in action through our interactive exhibits and demonstrations in the heart of Tucson. As the headquarters of WMG, the Living Lab also houses our staff working on programs that span Tucson, Mexico, and the Southwest. We are proud to “walk the talk” each day as the 2016 winner of Arizona's Greenest Workplace challenge. Come join us in drinking our rainwater, using the composting toilets, harvesting fresh snacks from the food forest, enjoying native gardens, and biking or busing to the Living Lab.

Come visit us for a tour or class at your Living Lab.We're proud of the Living Lab's rich history and how it's always evolving.

Access WMG's Living Lab and Learning Center Data Portal for weather data, rainwater supply and demand, and moreSee what's new at your Living Lab and Learning Center - it's growing, changing, and developing all the time!

Living Lab & Learning Center News

(Español abajo) Bring the kids to Family Saturday at the Living Lab for our youth workday. This event is free for the whole family on Saturday, December 17 from 9:00am - 12:00pm. For this month’s featured activity, participate in a variety of gardening give back service activities including pruning, mulching, litter pick up, and harvesting yummy native edible plants.  Schedule:9:00am - Gardening activites10:30am - Song and Story Time11:00am - Gardening activities 12:00pm -...
Jonah with Growler
Although grants can be an effective way to get funding for a program, they are unsustainable long term and don't give much room to expand. Monthly donors make it possible to put our time and energy into the community and core of a program, rather than searching for new grants and sources of funding. It is thanks to contributions from community members like you that we are expanding our Family Saturdays and Build Your Own Basin programs, building our new Learning Center, and...
WMG's Living Lab & Learning Center
WMG’s Living Lab and Learning Center is our cream of the crop demonstration site and beats the pants off LEED standards! WMG's interactive tours showcase our property's water and energy conservation systems in detail, and will inspire ideas for your own home! Learn more and check out the schedule of tours here. 
WMG's Cultural Ecologist Joaquin Murrieta dancing to Santa Pachita.
We had an amazing time at our Sept. 6 Food Forest Fiesta event! We were celebrating the edible bounty of the Sonoran Desert and all we have achieved together in the creation of WMG's Living Lab and Learning Center. Check out these fantastic photos by Nicci Radhe of Celesteal Photography.
WMG Urban Pollinator
Lincoln Welding at the Living Lab!
Pollinators have swiftly moved in to the Living Lab on our seventh day of Spring. Buzzing around our resident Rio Grande Butterfly Bush, Buddleja sessiliflora, the bees are busy collecting pollen from the clusters of tiny green flowers that have recently come back into bloom. Lisa Shipek, our Executive Director, bought the plant from Desert Survivors several years ago after learning there were only five wild bushes counted for in the Tucson region. What’s more, this species only grows near...