Image of student carrying a tower of board games and image of student next to penguin

Quest to Learn, New York City, New York (Left),
Game time
Gael Lopez shows off some board games in his classroom.

Zoo School, Grand Rapids, Michigan (Right).
Wild Life
Hannah Brubaker poses in front of a penguin tank.

Emily Zoldaz/AP Images for Scholastic (Hannah Brubaker); Nathaniel Welch/Redux (Gael Lopez)

CCSS

R.1, R.2, R.3, R.4, R.7, R.9, W.1, SL.1, L.4, L.6

Are These the Coolest Schools in America?

Gael and Hannah, both 13, think so. Read on to find out what has made their middle school experiences special.

September 2023

simulation

something that is created to imitate something else

I almost forgot the game was a simulation—it felt like I was really fighting zombies!

photo credit: Max kegfire/Shutterstock

trade

the act of buying, selling, or exchanging goods or services

There was much more trade in the town after it became a popular spot for tourists!

photo credit: rayints/Shutterstock

enclosures

areas surrounded by a wall or fence

One of the zoo’s newest enclosures is home to a family of giraffes.

photo credit: photandy/Shutterstock

surveyed

measured and examined

The team surveyed several pieces of land before deciding where to build the school.

photo credit: Bannafarsai_Stock/Shutterstock

“We Learn By Playing Games"

September 2023

by Gael Lopez, 13, as told to Michelle Crouch

Nathaniel Welch/Redux

Gael Lopez

Imagine a school where you play games all day long. Instead of doing math worksheets, you battle robots on a computer. Instead of reading textbooks, you complete missions assigned by your teachers.

There really is a school like that. It’s a public school in New York City called Quest to Learn. When my mom told me about it, I said, “That sounds amazing.” I applied and got a spot. Now I am one of about 300 kids in the middle school.

We take normal subjects like math, science, English, and social studies. But we have different names for them. For example, math is “Code World.” Science is “The Way Things Work.” Instead of homeroom, we have “Home Base.”

Quests and Missions

At Quest to Learn, the way we learn is different too. We do almost all our learning by playing games.

Some of those games are on a computer. For example, we worked on ratios in math class by playing an online game. It was called Ratio Rumble. Each person picked a character. To battle the other characters, we solved math problems that showed up on the screen.

Other games are played in person. In social studies, we play a lot of simulation games. One of my favorites taught us about trade in the American Colonies. (The Colonies were kind of like the U.S. states, way back in the 1600s.)

Here’s how the game worked: Each table had to pretend to be either an American Colony or a European country. Then we went around the room trading for goods and money.

We had to be sneaky so we wouldn’t get taxed by England. It was a great game.

We also do a few things that aren’t games. But we almost always learn through hands-on activities. In science, we baked bread to learn about chemical reactions. And in sixth grade, we designed our own comic books. Afterward, people from real comic book companies came in to give us feedback.

End-of-Year Carnival

At the end of the year, our whole school has a Quest Bowl. It’s like our final exam. The teachers split us into teams for a big project. Then we compete against each other.

For last year’s Quest Bowl, each team had to create carnival games based on a theme. Our theme was Las Vegas. We built a pinball machine out of cardboard. We also made a poker table.

We had to come up with ways to get students to stop by our booth. So we designed posters, and I wrote a rap song about our games. It was awesome!

I’m so glad my mom found Quest. I think I am learning a lot more than I did in my other school. I’m having more fun to

“I Went to School at the Zoo”

September 2023

by Hannah Brubaker, 13, as told to Michelle Crouch

Emily Zoldaz/AP Images for Scholastic

Hannah Brubaker

It was my first day of sixth grade. My mom dropped me off. A big sign in front of the building said “John Ball Zoo.” But I wasn’t in the wrong place.

That’s because I went to Zoo School last year. It’s a public school just for sixth-graders in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I applied for a spot in fifth grade. After being accepted, I was one of about 60 students there. Everyone called us “Zooies.”

Lion Drills

In many ways, Zoo School is like a regular school. You learn math, science, English, and geography. You have art and orchestra or band. You take the same state tests as other students in Michigan. To stay safe, you do fire drills.

What makes Zoo School different is that all classes are in a building inside the zoo. There are two classrooms and two teachers. The teachers switch classrooms halfway through the day.

Zoo School also has “lion drills.” That’s where you practice what to do if a dangerous animal gets out.

Junior Zookeepers

One of the best parts about Zoo School is the Junior Zookeeper program. If you have good grades and good behavior, you get to help out at the zoo two times a week.

My first job was working in the commissary. It’s a giant kitchen where we cut up food for the animals. It has more fruit and veggies than you have ever seen.

There is also a freezer with dead rabbits, mice, and rats for the animals that eat meat. They even have blood ice pops for the tigers!

Junior Zookeepers also clean animal enclosures, feed fish in the aquarium, and collect penguin eggs. If there is extra time, you can just hang out with the animals.

I really liked spending time with the red- and yellow-footed tortoises. They love being scratched on their heads and butts. It’s so cute!

Hands-on Activities

Being at the zoo isn’t the only thing that is special about Zoo School. There are also a lot of fun hands-on activities. For science class, we went to a local park. We surveyed the soil, water, plant life, and animal life. Afterward, we presented our findings to the park director.

We did a big camping trip at the end of the year too. We played games, went for long hikes, and learned survival skills. Now I know how to start a fire and build a shelter in the woods.

Everyone who goes to Zoo School gets a sweatshirt. It says, “No lion! I go to school at the zoo!”

To be honest, it’s kind of an outdated design. But we all wear them because we love Zoo School. It’s so different from any other school! Zooies learn so much and become such a community.