Deadline approaching for early migrants

September 19, 2024 by Susan Meyers, Monarchs Across Georgia

Sept. 30 is the deadline for Symbolic Migration Project early migrants! Purchase your passenger ticket and postmark your ambassador by this date to receive the incentive of a reduced price ($15) for their passenger ticket, as well as the benefit of having their ambassador delivered in the first wave of school visits before winter break. 

We realize that Sept. 30 may not work for everyone as some schools and groups are just beginning the academic year. Oct. 18 is the final deadline for the purchase of your passenger ticket and postmark of your ambassador. The price increases to $20 on Oct. 1. 

To participate in the Symbolic Migration Project, youth decorate paper butterflies, called ambassadors, which are mailed and distributed to schools near the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico. A passenger ticket covers the costs of shipping ambassadors to and from Mexico and environmental education in Mexico.

The goal is to foster connections between children in these three countries and unite youth in cooperation to protect the monarch butterfly's migration into the future. 

Need some inspiration? Environmental Literacy and Community Engagement Specialist Kimberly Murray shared a PowerPoint used to introduce seventh graders to the Symbolic Monarch Migration project. Have tips or resources to share? Send them to symbolic-migration@eealliance.org.

The Symbolic Monarch Migration project is a partnership project between Journey North (a program of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum) and Monarchs Across Georgia (a committee of the nonprofit organization, the Environmental Education Alliance). Journey North hosts educational materials on its website. Monarchs Across Georgia administers the project including coordinating the exchange of symbolic butterflies among 2000+ classrooms in three countries, engaging a contract worker to provide lessons and deliver materials in Mexico, and raising funds for the project's continuation.

Monarchs Across Georgia is pleased to announce that the Monarch Butterfly Fund has agreed to support a $2,500 Request for Proposals through their Small Grant Program. The "Beyond the Mexico Book Project V" designates monies to be used to purchase books for and support the environmental education efforts in the schools surrounding the Mexican monarch sanctuaries during the 2024-25 migration season.