Students at Learning Gate Community School examine a largemouth bass, caught by biologists from the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission during the school’s annual BioBlitz event.Biologists from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission steered their flatboat toward the banks of a small lake at Learning Gate Community School, where waiting students pointed to a patch of thick lily pads.
A small alligator had poked its head through the blanket of green, black eyes gleaming in the blazing sunshine.
“Catch it!” several students called to biologists Matt Stevens and Cole Harty.
Stevens laughed.
“I think we’ll leave that one alone,” he said.
Stevens and Harty were at Learning Gate, an independent K-8 charter school located in Lutz, Florida, just north of Tampa, for the school’s annual BioBlitz, during which students and their parents identify and count animal species on the school’s woodsy 30-acre tract.
During the event, attended by more than 200 students and parents, Stevens and Harty took students on trips around the lake, where they used a high-frequency electric fishing technique to catch fish to inspect for diseases and parasites.
Attached to the front of the flatboat were a pair of booms. At the end of the booms, metal cords dipped several feet into the water. The cords had positive and negative charges that went about 6 feet into the water to “stun” fish that swam in range.
“The charge fills their air bladders and they come to the surface,” Stevens said.
After being scooped from the water, the fish were put in a water tank on the boat where they came to, usually in less than two minutes.
On the bank, sweaty, dirt-covered students who had spent hours tromping around the woods identifying and counting plants, insects, birds and fungi waited to see what was caught.
Parent volunteer Scott Gainforth of Lutz held up a catfish, then a garfish. Using a small stick, he opened the garfish’s mouth.
“Be careful, he has a mouthful of teeth,” Gainforth said.
Learning Gate was established in 1983 as a “preschool where kids get dirty.” According to the school’s website, it became the state’s first “environmentally focused” charter school in 2000. The school has had an A rating for 14 of the last 15 years, according to the Florida Department of Education.
Sienna Fogarty, a fourth-grader at Learning Gate, looks at the sharp teeth of a garfish, held by the FWC’s Matt Stevens, right, and Cole Harty.The school attracts students from around Lutz and as far away as Plant City and South Tampa. It even draws students from other school districts, like Hernando County.
Seventh- and eighth-graders attend a Learning Gate facility off nearby Lutz-Lake Fern Road. Learning Gate’s total enrollment is about 800 students, with about 600 of them in K-6.
“We do lots of hands-on learning and physical activity,” said Assistant Principal Kelly Pratt, who has worked at Learning Gate for 13 years. “Learning doesn’t just happen in the classroom.
“We have a one-acre garden where students can eat what they grow,” she said. “They learn about different ways of farming and growing, and they learn about natural insecticides, such as ladybugs and beetles.”
That is why Brian Maddox wanted his sons, Ian, a first-grader, and Noah, a second-grader, at Learning Gate. During BioBlitz, he was helping students identify creatures in the garden, including a mouse.
Maddox said his sons previously attended a neighborhood school, but he thought the curriculum there involved too much technology.
“This school was the opposite,” he said. “It’s way more outdoorsy and aligned with what we like.”
Besides the lake, garden and tree-lined trails, the property includes a swamp, pond, massive playground and large playing field.
It’s the type of school Amber Gyger, mother of second-grader Ty Marshall, wishes she could have attended.
“I didn’t even know this school was here until I drove by one day,” Gyger said. “I researched it and applied. I love that it’s a green school.”
Ty said he was happy at Learning Gate, where he has made lots of friends. He especially likes tending the garden.
“I help get the weeds out from the plants,” he said. “We water the plants and help the animals. I like to feed the squirrels nuts and stuff.”
The school has attracted students and parents, as well as teachers, who are passionate about environmental education.
Jim McGinity, an environmental resources teacher who coordinated BioBlitz, has been at Learning Gate for eight years. He previously worked at environmental learning centers in Wisconsin and Illinois, as well as one in Pinellas County.
Then he heard about Learning Gate.
“I’ve never seen a school like this,” McGinity said. “All of our reading ties in to science. Here, they get to learn about biodiversity in the natural world – in and out of the classroom. It’s just a very positive place.”
A self-described bird lover, McGinity has introduced bird banding at the school. He catches migratory birds in fine netting before he weighs and measures them. Students observe, then release the birds – mostly redstarts, brown thrashers, Kentucky warblers, black-throated blue warblers and hooded warblers – right from their hands.
At Learning Gate, it’s all about experiencing, understanding and appreciating nature.
By BioBlitz’s end, students learned that the lake’s fish were as healthy as the lake seemed to be. Their instructors helped them count 277 species of fungi, birds, aquatic plants, fish, spiders, reptiles and amphibians, dragonflies and butterflies, aquatic insects and terrestrial insects during the four-hour event.
They observed a yellowish pine snake and a worm-like blind snake, which were handled safely, while someone else found a water scorpion, which was not handled.
The number of species counted during last year’s BioBlitz was 233.
A round of applause went up when this year’s number was announced.
Students, parents and teachers smiled and gave each other high fives.
Their spirits soared in the Florida heat.
