Migrating Monarch Butterfly

What To Do

Introduction

Today we are going to be talking about the long journey that monarch butterflies take each year to escape winter and how we can help them!

Recap of the butterfly cycle [slide 3 + 4]

• Play video: Butterfly: A Life | National Geographic (2:01m, lifecycle starts at 0:25)
  • Alternatively, use the image on slide 4 to explain the butterfly lifecycle.
• Turn the sound off and describe what is happening while the video plays:

Video Summary: This video shows the process of a monarch egg turning into a butterfly. The caterpillar pushes its way out of the egg. Once out, it eats the shell. The caterpillar finds a leaf to eat. The caterpillar gets bigger and bigger. The caterpillar finds a tree branch and builds a chrysalis or a cocoon around itself. The cocoon becomes thicker. After some time, a beautiful butterfly breaks out of the cocoon.

Activity 1 – Migration Maps

What to do

• Hand out Butterfly Migration Map Worksheet.
• Identify the countries that are on the map.
  • Label “Canada” on the map.
  • Label “USA”, the acronym of United States of America, on the map.
  • Write “Mexico” on the map.
  • Write “North” on the map next to Canada.
  • Write “South” on the map next to Mexico.

• Identify the direction the butterflies on the sheet are migrating.
  • If they are migrating north, draw a blue arrow pointing north.
  • If they are migrating south, draw a yellow arrow pointing south.
• After 5 minutes, ask the educator to guide their attention back to the PowerPoint if needed.

Activity 2: Pollinator Game

What to do

• Hand out butterfly templates and have participants colour their butterflies.
• Hand out the flower templates and have participants colour their flowers.
• Explain the safety rule: You must be gentle and not hit when you tag a friend and always listen to the instructions. 

Option #1: Pollination Game (Octopus style)

• Choose 3 participants to be monarch butterflies. They will tape their wings to their shirts. They will be in the middle of the room, spaced out from one another.
• The other participants will be flowers. Give each flower two pollen balls. They will tape their flowers to their shirts, and they will stay on one side of the room with their pollen balls in hand.
• The goal of the game is to get from one side of the room to the other without being tagged by a monarch butterfly.
• Once tagged, the flower will have to give up one pollen ball.
• Once a flower has lost 2 of their pollen balls, they will become a monarch butterfly and make their way to the middle of the room.

Option #2: Flower, Flower, Pollinate (Duck, Duck, Goose style)

• Have the participants sit in a circle and give them all 2 pollen balls.
• Choose 1 participants to be the butterfly and have them play duck, duck goose but instead the words will be “flower, flower pollinate”.
• Once they chose someone they will say “pollinate!”. The butterfly and flower are going to race one another to the empty spot and whoever gets there first will take 1 pollen from the person who is now the new butterfly.
• The person who collects 3 pieces of pollen is the winner!

Climate Extensions

Let’s talk about some of the challenges monarch butterflies face and some of the cool things people are doing to protect them. Maybe you can do some of these things too!

What is Climate Change? [slide 9]

• Play video: What is Climate Change? by Environment and Climate Change Canada (1:52m)

Video summary: Climate is the earth’s normal weather over a long period of time. It usually takes thousands of years for our climate to change. Recently, these changes have been happening a lot faster. These changes make it harder for our plants, animals, and people around the world to live. These changes are caused by human activity which release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases trap extra heat from the sun, like a blanket. This is causing things like ice and snow to melt, the oceans to have more water and more extreme weather like floods and droughts. There are many things that we can do to help protect ourselves from climate change!

We just learned that climate change is the change of the environment. Let’s talk about how changes to the environment can affect monarch butterfly bodies, their food, and habitats (where they live).

• Monarch Butterfly Migration [slide 10]
• Monarch Caterpillar Food [slide 11]
• Monarch Butterfly Habitat [slide 12]

Wrap-Up

• Go through the trivia questions [slides 14-19] with the group (optional)
• Click on the letter of the answer to display the red font (wrong) or the green font (correct)
• Read of all questions and answers aloud, as reading levels will vary at this age.
• Discuss possible careers and what participants will need (experience, schooling) to get into those careers. Such as,
  • Wildlife Conservationist (preserves and protects biodiversity and endangered species)
  • Entomologists (scientist that studies insects)
  • Botanists (scientist that studies plants)