Isidro Fabela, Elementary 4th, 5th, and 6th Grades
This season, the Journey North Program has expanded and started to visit, for the first time, a group of new schools, which result quite an important audience, in the state of Mexico. This school is located on the other side of the Sierra Chincua Sanctuary area. With Estela’s visit, the students learned for the first time about the monarchs’ life cycle, and the importance of preserving their habitat.

The school is located near San José del Ricón town, where children and their families come for shopping and sightseeing and doing business.

A large percentage of children attending this school, are indigenous. These students’ grand-parents preserved the forests, keeping them very healthy and dense up to even a couple of decades ago. Unfortunately, this is not the same under their parents, who have over-exploited their areas within their Ejidos.

For these children and teachers, everything about the monarch life-cycle is new.  Up to now, in the 40 years since the monarch sanctuaries were discovered, no book containing information about the monarchs' natural preserve has been available to the children at school. The children and teachers who received this information and their Journey North Symbolic Butterflies were fascinated to learn.

On this side of our region, and in the bordering areas of the state of México, the State demands much more from teachers. The teachers came into the classroom to hear and participate in Estela’s lesson.

In most school, teachers and students believe that monarch butterflies live in forests and form clusters in the trees like they do in this region.  They were absolutely astonished and delighted to find out about monarch migration up into the United States and Canadian breeding grounds during the summer in the north.

When students heard from Estela that the group photos that were taken would reach their counterparts (via the Journey North web site) in US and Canada, they couldn’t believe it!

Everyone was excited to receive the gifts that their Ambassador butterfly brought to them! A wonderful gift among others, was a series of  photos that showed the monarch life-cycle.  The teacher was amused to see it, and assured this would be a topic for their class from now on!

Butterflies Received
This school received Ambassador Butterflies from the following U.S. and Canadian Schools:

Union Cross Elementary, Kernersville, NC
Hominy Valley Elementary, Candler, NC
Highland Elementary, Ephrata, PA
Clearmont Elementary, Burnsville, NC
Hominy Valley Elementary, Candler, NC
Brooklyn School of Inquiry, Brooklyn, NY
Catskill Elementary, Catskill, NY
Brooklyn School of Inquiry, Brooklyn, NY
Mazo de la Roche Public School, Newmarket, ON
Norway Public School, Toronto, ON
Plymouth School, Welland, ON
Plymouth School, Welland, ON
Pleasant Park Public School, Ottawa, ON
Corsair Public School, Mississauga, ON
Brookmede Public School, Mississauga, ON
Meadowview Public School, Addison, ON
Cedar Creek Public School, Ayr, ON
Cedar Creek Public School, Ayr, ON
Corsair Public School, Mississauga, ON
Immaculate Conception Catholic School, Ancaster, ON
Blenheim District Public School, Drumbo, ON
Havelock Belmont Public School, Havelock, ON
Garderie Bonne Aventure, Montreal , QC
Garderie Bonne Aventure, Montreal , QC
Pauline Johnson Public School, Burlington, ON
Saint Andrews Public School, Toronto, ON
Saint Andrews Public School, Toronto, ON