This new school works with Fresno Chaffee Zoo to take students outside the classroom

Some Fresno kindergartners recently showed off their new school with a small, student-led presentation about the cycles of a flower and its importance to the monarch butterfly and our ecosystem.

About 200 early elementary school students are enrolled in the new Golden Charter Academy in southwest Fresno, the first environmental stewardship zoo school in the country. The school emphasizes hands-on learning outside traditional classrooms, according to its founder, former NFL player Robert Golden.

“I’m originally from southwest Fresno, and, after playing in the NFL for seven years, one of the things I wanted to do was come back to my home community and be able to inspire and give children motivation that there is more to life than what is offered in southwest Fresno, California,” Golden said.

The school, which opened in August, partners with the Fresno Chaffee Zoo, allowing students daily access outside their Princeton Avenue classrooms.

“One of the things that we are doing here is teaching our kids environmental education and giving them environmental literacy,“ Golden said.

Thursday’s presentation ended with students and parents planting milkweed to help attract the monarch butterfly back to Fresno. Parents were also given a small milkweed plant for their own gardens or communities.

“We want students to have an impact on the life cycle of the butterfly,” kindergarten teacher Regina Harwell said. “We are having them plant the milkweed with their parents so their parents can get involved, too, and make a bigger impact in the community.”

Monarch butterflies are prolific local pollinators experiencing a 99.4% decline in their population since the 1980s. Although nearly extinct, the butterflies are not yet on the endangered species list.

“We’re teaching the students that they can change their communities right now,” principal Mandy Breuer told the Education Lab.

Breuer said students are also learning how everything in nature is connected.

“They are thinking in systems, and they are being taught very specifically to think in systems so they can understand that their contributions as little tiny humans can have big consequences for the better for their communities,” Breuer said.

Golden Academy teachers hope to expand Thursday’s milkweed efforts beyond the school campus.

“This project is starting on our campus now. Next year we’re hoping this project is some sort of green space corner in west or southwest Fresno so that we can keep perpetuating these gardens. I mean, plants help us have healthier air,” Breuer said.

Southwest Fresno has some of the unhealthiest air in the nation, a statistic Golden and his colleagues at Golden Academy are trying to change.

“One of the things that we are doing here is just showing the children how to care for their world. How to have empathy for people and how to have empathy for the world. We’re hoping students will take this information back to their communities,” Golden said.

This story was originally published November 20, 2021 at 5:00 AM.