This article describes an activity designed to foster an authentic way for students to learn about the biodiversity in their community. The activity is a half year scaffolding sequence to explore the living environment right outside the classroom. In using the outdoors just outside the window as a classroom, an inquiry based activity accomplished two main learning goals: (1) To learn about something in their local environment; and (2) the effects we have on it. The goals were accomplished by focusing specifically on monarch butterflies and their preferred plants through research and data collection and by using analytical, observational, and communication skills as life cycles of the plants and butterflies in the surrounding ecosystem were observed.