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Teacher
Workshop: Send a Monarch to Mexico
In the fall, over 60,000 students across the globe created symbolic
butterflies and sent them to Mexico as part of Journey North. The
Symbolic Monarch represents the gift of goodwill that each country must
contribute to ensure the survival of this shared natural resource.
Children who live beside the Monarchs' winter sanctuaries in Mexico
protect the paper butterflies and return them in the spring. Through
the Symbolic Migration, children are united by the Monarch butterfly
and celebrate its spectacular migration. They learn authentic lessons
of conservation and international cooperation. A global study of
wildlife migration, Journey North engages citizen scientists and K-12
students in sharing their own field observations with classmates across
North America. They track the coming of spring through the migration
patterns of butterflies, robins, hummingbirds, whooping cranes, gray
whales, bald eagles— and other birds and mammals; the budding of
plants; changing sunlight; and other natural events.
The symbolic butterflies' fall flight is timed to correspond with the
real Monarchs' journey south. As the eastern population of North
American Monarchs are arriving in Mexico for the winter, students from
the sanctuary region receive their symbolic butterflies. Sometime in
March when the real Monarchs' departure from Mexico is announced, the
paper butterflies return north carrying special messages from the
students in Mexico.
Darke County Parks’ Naturalist, Mandy Martin, visited Mrs. Flora’s
class at East Intermediate in September of 2015 and began the 8 month
Journey North Symbolic Migration project with the students. The
children learned about the natural history of the Monarch butterfly and
the incredible journey the butterflies make each fall.
Children discovered the life cycle of the beautiful insect, the tools
the insect uses for survival and the migration path of the winged
jewel. The students then decorated individual paper butterflies
and one large class butterfly to be included in the Journey North
Symbolic Migration. The children’s artistic creations were sent to
classrooms in Mexico near the winter sanctuaries of the Monarch
butterflies. In February of 2016, Mrs. Flora’s class was notified
of the location in which their class butterfly ‘landed’ in
Mexico. By connecting to the Journey North website, the students
in Greenville were able to see pictures of the Mexican students holding
their class butterflies! Finally, coinciding with the spring
migration, Mrs. Flora’s class began receiving butterflies, after
wintering in Mexico, from all over the United States and
Canada.
Darke County Parks invites teachers on Saturday, August 27th at 2pm to
participate in the global conservation effort of the iconic Monarch
Butterfly. Join Mandy Martin for an afternoon highlighting how the
program works and how to get involved. She’ll begin scheduling
naturalist classroom visits to start your class on this magnificent
journey. This program is completely free though registration is
required. If you are interested in your classroom participating in the
Symbolic Monarch program but can’t attend the workshop, contact Mandy
Martin at the Nature Center. She will be happy to work with you
individually.
For questions about this program or any other program offered by the
Darke County Parks or to register, please stop by the Nature Center,
call (937) 548-0165, or email info@darkecountyparks.org.
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