Katella High School has a greener look.
Instead of a lawn, the front of the campus now features a 1.9-acre drought-tolerant botanical garden with a landscape element called a bioswale that collects storm water and filters pollutants out of water runoff.
Olive trees dot a garden in the middle of the campus.
Soon, students will get their hands dirty in still-to-be-built greenhouses.
The environmentally friendly look got funding help from a $2 million grant through the state’s Drought Response Outreach Program for Schools, known as DROPS, and is part of an $11.4 million improvement project that updated the 36-acre Katella campus.