Revitalizing community: A new STEAM Park brings community together through water education
Situated in the historic heart of the Verde Valley, the Town of Clarkdale brings together community, science and recreation with its Selna-Mongini STEAM Park.
The park provides an innovative convening space for youth and adults to engage in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math (STEAM) through hands-on, experiential learning. The park is the result of years of planning and visioning, and is a collaborative effort with residents, local leaders, generous donors and ASU’s Project Cities program.
Transforming the community ballpark into a living classroom
At its heart, Clarkdale’s STEAM Park offers opportunities to learn about water conservation through play. Interactive features, including a greywater demonstration tank, pollinator gardens, permeable pavers and a rainwater system, are located throughout the park to introduce children and families to how water moves, how it’s conserved and why it matters deeply in an arid region like Clarkdale.
Demonstration areas showcase environmental resource management and water conservation efforts, including greywater reuse systems, helping visitors see how water can be captured and repurposed rather than wasted.
Educational signage connects these systems to the local area, creating hands-on lessons relevant to the community context and empowering conservation by showing it in action.
The park draws inspiration from Clarkdale’s natural resources, including its native plants and pollinator gardens, serving as a living classroom to teach visitors of all ages about the region’s assets, including the Verde River.
“The Selna-Mongini STEAM Park sees daily use from local families, visitors and school groups,” said Chell Smart, the Town’s manager of parks and communications.
From community dialogue to design implementation
Since 2020, Arizona State University’s Project Cities has partnered with the Town of Clarkdale to connect university students and faculty to tackle real-world challenges in the community.
Early collaborations included community revitalization, such as the Town’s downtown corridor and helping with the reinvisioning of the Selna-Mongini ballpark, where students made recommendations for the space that could serve the whole community, while emphasizing education, particularly around water, a critical issue in the Verde Valley.
That partnership took on new momentum in March 2024, when Project Cities hosted the Verde Valley Water Workshop with support from Impact Water - Arizona, a pillar of the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative.
Recognizing the opportunity to collaborate more deeply with rural communities on water issues, the team brought together an intergenerational group of residents, city leadership, water management practitioners and regional stakeholders. Participants came from Clarkdale and nearby Camp Verde to dialogue around shared water challenges and priorities, and identify community-driven water projects for collective action.
Following the workshop, the Town of Clarkdale partnered with Project Cities to support the next phase of the park’s educational goals.
Through a two-stage process, research in fall 2024 and implementation in spring 2025, graduate students from ASU’s School of Applied Professional Studies worked alongside town staff to help design educational signage for the STEAM park.
The students focused on user experience and interpretive communication, researching best practices for presenting complex water and STEAM concepts. Their role was to support the Town’s goals by translating local priorities into clear, visually compelling designs that would resonate with youth, families and adult visitors.
Grant funding from Impact Water – Arizona supported the purchase of the welcome sign, while student designs were incorporated into additional park signage through generous donations and grants from the Arizona State Parks and Trails Board, the Federal Land Water Conservation Fund and more than 50 community donors.
“These students were challenged to think deeply about place-based education and how thoughtful design can spark curiosity across all ages,” Smart said, noting that the work resulted in design options specifically tailored to the STEAM park.
Solutions through collaboration
Today, educational signage and design elements are integrated throughout Selna-Mongini STEAM Park, using images and accessible language to explain water systems, conservation practices and the role of sustainable resource management in the Verde Valley.
In Selna-Mongini STEAM Park, every path and activity connects local water stories to lived experiences, encouraging visitors to pause, ask questions and consider how their own actions affect the region’s resources for generations to come.
“We are thrilled to support Project Cities work with the Town of Clarkdale,” said Susan Craig, director of Impact Water - Arizona. “Hands on projects throughout the state empower ASU students and communities alike to take action, together, on complex Arizona water challenges.”
About the author: Alison Almand is the Program Manager for Project Cities, which is a member of the Educational Partnerships for Innovation in Communities Network (EPIC-N) and is administered by ASU’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory and the Sustainable Cities Network. Stay up to date with Project Cities and the Sustainable Cities Network by following us on social media or subscribing to our newsletter.
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