We are building a “School Without Walls!”
“Background knowledge plays a key role in students’ reading comprehension — our findings show that if students don’t have sufficient related knowledge, they’ll probably have difficulties understanding text”
Program Overview
Welcome to our “School Without Walls!” The Biome School is where challenge and choice are extended into the broader community to provide a holistic education for children. We partner with community institutions, like the St. Louis Zoo, to establish our micro-schools. The results are semester-long projects integrated into our curriculum and opportunities for students to apply their classroom knowledge to real-life experiences.
The Mirco School at The Saint Louis Zoo provides our students with experiential and authentic learning opportunities.
Students gain unprecedented access behind the scenes during their week at the Zoo. They engage in activities with zoo staff, such as touring the nutritional center, building enrichment items for the grizzly bears, dissecting owl pellets and squids, and engaging in positive reinforcement training with select animals. Students spend time at the Zoo gathering information about their selected animals and collecting data on their behavior through ethograms.
Upon returning to school, learners create their mini museum project. Some artifacts in their mini museum will be research papers about their animal, life cycle puzzles, and a diorama of their animal’s habitat.
 |
The Biome STEAM School partners with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to provide students with hands-on learning experiences focused on the ecosystems of our region. Throughout the program, DNR park interpreters visit classrooms to teach students about topics such as floodplains, forests, wetlands, wildlife, geology, and conservation.
These classroom lessons are paired with field experiences at local Missouri state parks, where students investigate ecosystems firsthand through observation, data collection, and exploration. Students learn how natural systems function, how people impact the environment, and the importance of protecting Missouri’s natural resources.
