Life on the farm: H.B. school hosts environmental showcase
The farm at Golden View Elementary School in Huntington Beach is certainly unique.
Julie Neubert has been teaching at the Ocean View School District campus for 27 years, and that’s long enough for her to have substitute teachers who were formerly her students.
When they come back, there’s a common refrain.
“They’re always like, ‘Do I get to go to the farm?’” Neubert said. “It’s a multigenerational, really special experience.”
Golden View hosted an Environmental Science Civic Engagement Showcase on Friday afternoon, giving families a chance to check out students’ projects displayed in their classrooms while also having fun on the 2.5-acre farm on campus.
Different environmental partners such as the Orange County Water District, Pacific Marine Mammal Center, Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy and more were on hand to share knowledge and engage with the families.
Golden View Principal Lori Florgan said this was the first time Golden View has hosted an event of this scale. She’s been working the last couple of years on those community partnerships.
Golden View has long integrated environmental science into its curriculum, but this year it started focusing on civic engagement as well.
Each student at the school, from transitional kindergarten to fifth grade, has a civic engagement project.
“Every grade level is doing something a little different that’s all based around their science standards and the environmental principles and concepts,” Florgan said. “They’re engaged in the community, to try to get them on board with ways that they can do their part outside of school, at home and out in the community.”
Neubert, who teaches both fourth and fifth grade, said her fourth-graders have learned about renewable resources and renewable energy types like solar energy, wind energy and hydropower. As part of the civic engagement element of the program they created slideshows and posters to encourage the community to use solar, wind or water energy.
The fifth-graders learned about the earth’s different spheres — the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere and geosphere. They chose one to study, looking at the positive and negative impacts that humans have on the different spheres while also creating models of drought-resident gardens to show how the different spheres interact together.
They also created posters and slideshows to encourage the community to have a positive impact on a certain sphere.
“We have taken our environmental science program to the next level by adding this civic engagement piece,” Neubert said. “It’s not just that the kids are learning about it, but also trying to teach the community about ways that they can be involved in environmentally sound practices.”
The farm has been enhanced over the years. Some recent improvements include a leadership course that was added, very walkable paths as well as a higher wall to keep out animals like coyotes, OVSD Assistant Supt. Keith Farrow said.
“The trustees keep investing in it,” he said.
Elizabeth Bray enjoyed the farm Friday as she visited with her two nieces. Zoey Timmons is a fourth-grade special needs student at Golden View, and her younger sister Riley is a TK student.
Zoey said her favorite part of the farm is the pigs, though she is part of a group that works with the chickens.
Bray is an alumna of Golden View herself.
“I know there’s always shock when I say my nieces went to a school, and I went to a school, that has a farm,” Bray said. “This is not a hands-on experience that everyone gets. We live in Huntington Beach. A lot of people would be like, ‘I’ve never seen a goat.’ It’s just a wild, nice way to connect with the environment and get real-world [experience].”
“It helps them care about it more. Not that they wouldn’t care, but when it’s tangible, there’s more of a connect. It’s nice to be like, ‘Hey, this is part of the environment. If we don’t take care of it, this won’t be here.’”
This school year, TK and third-grade students across the Ocean View district take field trips to the farm at Golden View each Wednesday, Florgan said. The hope is to broaden that next school year to more grades, as well as possibly others outside the school district.
Golden View was one of three elementary schools the district was considering consolidating next year due to continued declining enrollments, but the Board of Trustees voted unanimously in November to keep it open.
Neubert, for one, was pleased with that outcome.
“We felt very grateful for that decision because we feel like this is such an important and timely topic that we are instilling in our kids from TK on,” she said. “Part of our mission is to create these stewards for the environment, so we’re so happy that this program gets to continue on and we get to reach all of these kids and families. And they get to reach out to the community, to spread the word even further.”
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