New Classroom at UCLA Offers Breath of Fresh Air

UCLA has built a quiet outdoor classroom where academics and community groups can meet and, at the same time, find refuge from the hubbub of life on the Westside.

The serene amphitheater is called the Nest--a fitting name for the area tucked among the plants and trees of UCLA’s 7.5-acre Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden. A ginkgo tree provides some shade over the area on the southeast corner of the campus, said Arthur Gibson, director of the botanical garden and a professor of biology at UCLA.

Lined with enough benches to accommodate 60 adults, the Nest is available for UCLA classes. But the public also can use the space for meetings.

The Nest was designed and constructed by staff members of the botanical garden using all natural materials. For example, the benches, arranged in a semicircular pattern, are made from California incense cedar.

“We’re going to have botany classes, music classes and other types of classes there,” said Gibson. “And it could be sort of an outing for other groups like garden clubs and rose clubs.”

The Nest seems a good setting for nature-oriented classes and groups because of its proximity to the botanical garden. The garden has 4,000 types of plants from around the world, many of them rare tropical and subtropical varieties. And there are 200-foot eucalyptus and California buckeye trees, Gibson said.

“It’s also a bird watchers’ paradise,” he said, pointing out that a particular species of green parrot has been spotted in the garden.

Much of what it cost to build the outdoor classroom came from a $7,500 donation from the family of the late Hazel McMurran, a 1953 UCLA graduate with a degree in art.

The center is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and weekends from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Reservations: (310) 825-3620. . . .