Role in Education

All California fourth graders are required to study California missions as part of their state history curriculum. Visiting the missions provides students the rare opportunity to see, touch and experience history – not just read about it online or in a book. Students come from all over the Central Coast – even as far away as Coalinga – to visit the very special Mission San Antonio.

Mission San Antonio stands as a superb example of Spanish Mission architecture, in a pristine natural setting that literally transports the visitor back to the Mission era. Among many facts, fourth graders learn that the Mission was:

• The first building in California to utilize the Spanish design of red clay tile roofs
• The first to employ the use of a kiln to produce fired bricks
• The first Christian marriage in California, which took place at the Mission between a  Spanish solider and a native Salinan woman
• The first mission to celebrate a thousand baptisms among the native population
• The first to establish an aqueduct and irrigation system

Mission San Antonio offers docent-led tours that explore its chapel and historic buildings as well as its outdoor exhibits including the water-driven gristmill used for grain grinding, California's first aqueduct and irrigation system and the Padres' Courtyard Garden. Students can also explore an archeology table where pieces of pottery, chert (the rock used for arrowheads), hand-forged square nails and other historic objects are buried in sand. Students "discover" and identify the found objects, putting history in their hands.

December through June, Mission San Antonio sees one to three tours per week with 25 to 125 students at a time. Losing Mission San Antonio would be a travesty for California's fourth graders and the education system, as it is the only mission without a busy city built up around it.  It is a place where students can visualize history and experience a sense of serenity not found at any other Californian Mission site.

The impact of Mission San Antonio is so profound that it inspires throngs of student thank you letters and, impressively, a fourth grader to write her own book called The Search for the Golden Mission, which you can find in the Mission's gift store.

Fourth graders are not the only students who find immense historical value in Mission San Antonio. Students of higher learning institutions come to study the excellent example the Mission provides of Spanish Colonial Mission Architecture. Fortunate California college students have come to Mission San Antonio nearly every summer for over 30 years, led by California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo Archeology Professor Dr. Robert L. Hoover. University of California, Santa Cruz students will begin coming to the grounds in 2012.