The plight of the monarch butterfly has become a focal point in Pittsburg for teaching ecology and providing job skills to the city's youth.
STS Academy, an operator of after-school programs, is trying to take a small step in reversing the monarch's decline by trying to breed the butterfly in a long-closed greenhouse at Small World Park, the city's amusement park for kids. Local youths have been helping renovate the greenhouse, which will be used for school field trips this year.
Monarchs have been declining in the Western United States because of human encroachment on their habitat and the use of herbicides to kill the milkweed plant on which they lay their eggs. The western monarch population in California declined by about 90 percent between 1997 and 2009, according to the Portland, Ore.-based Xerces Society, which is dedicated to preserving invertebrate species.
STS received $9,000 in grants from Dow Chemical and the Pittsburg High School '60s Decade Reunion Committee to pave the greenhouse floor and fill it with plants and butterflies.
The goal this school year will be to take as many Pittsburg elementary and middle school students as possible on field trips to Small World Park.
The students will see a video that uses the example of the monarch to teach about endangered species and loss of habitat and then view the butterflies up close, said STS Executive Director Jim Craft.
"We're going to be bringing about 20 kids in here at a time during school hours," Craft said.
About 7,500 elementary and middle school students attend Pittsburg schools, he said.
The academy serves about 1,500 students daily in after-school programs, including tutoring for elementary and middle school students and job training for older students.
The butterfly project began at the end of June, and the greenhouse is now home to dozens of native and non-native plants, including milkweed.
Several monarchs from an original supply of 25 butterflies purchased from a farm in Woodland were crowded onto a single milkweed plant Thursday morning.
Craft and Christina Swan, a former city horticulturist, were expecting a delivery of 72 more monarchs Friday.
Swan said she's resisted the temptation to purchase eye-catching exotic butterflies, but she wants to bring in other regional butterfly species, such as painted ladies, mourning cloaks and swallowtails.
Aaron Phillips and Joseph Pena, both 16-year-old juniors at Pittsburg High, have been working on the greenhouse and a surrounding drought-resistant garden for more than a month.
They have laid bricks, shoveled and hauled gravel for pathways, planted flowers, moved potted shrubs and helped build a chain-link fence.
Phillips, who is thinking about becoming a lineman for PG&E, said he has already put to use some of the construction skills he learned.
"After we put the pavers in the greenhouse, I put some in my own backyard," he said.
Contact Rick Radin at 925-779-7166.