Miguel Hidalgo Elementary, Grades 3-6
Miguel Hidalgo Elementary is located at the Premier Cuartel de Rondanilla Community (lower south-western mountain sides of Sanctuary Sierra Chincua).
Once teachers order students gather in a same classroom, they all run and bring their chairs to attend Journey North’s Presentation!
The satellite maps used in the presentation show Monarchs’ eastern and western migration corridor. It also shows how very dry territories dominate from the northern regions in USA down to the south of the continent. Estela and students analyse that this dryness effect is extending into many regions in México and wonder how this affect Monarchs migration facts and it breeding and overwintering seasons. Estela tells them the challenges Monarchs have gone through while crossing Texas, a vast land extent where dryness has caused terrible shortage of nectar and water for Monarchs in the fall, in their Journey South, just before reaching México. Children show real concern on this and realice of its high importance, since they immediately deduce that our whole ecosystem equilibrium is at stake under such situations.
Many, many questions arise in the classroom such as:
“Do Monarchs gather into Sanctuaries also in the North as they do here?”.
“What kind of vegetation do they live in in the north?”.
“What if milkweed were grown here in our forest, would there be migration north anyway?”
“We should try to preserve as much as possible our local plants, flowers, trees and in whole our local hábitat in general, in order to keep equilibrium in our whole ecosystem and in our own lives, so that our agricultural activities, flora and fauna keep on their season’s pace, otherwise, life in general for all living creatures can drastically change for the bad”, --Estela explains--. Can you realice how important conservation is?.
At breaktime moms come to sell snacks and candies to their own children. Any profits go back into projects to improve the school.
This time, delicious enchiladas (a fried tortilla soaked in hot mole, bended over but previously filled their inside with finely chopped onion, chicken meat, and once bended, by the half dressed with cream and cheese and finely sliced lettuce) were prepared by moms for the students, which they love. Each enchilada is 3 pesos (about 16 US cents)!
Elder brothers, who do not continue their studies after middle or at the most high school, choose to support parents in family-farming activity.
Background of the Area
Traditionally, the communities in these área make aliving from both legal and illegal logging practices and domestic agriculture, cattle and back-yard animal raising for the family’s die., Some find work in the mining activities or end up crossing the border to North America as their only options for a living. Being so, and for those men choosing to stay in their homeland, grandparents, parents, and brothers were hired by local wood-wholesalers for really low incomes equivalent now to the lowest official income in México, which is 82-84 pesos – a little over 4 dollars a day, to cut and load wood into trucks. This practices still prevail now, but hopefully diminishing substantially, since presently, a 3 ton truck’s value loaded with wood is about 3,000 to 3,500 pesos paid to the owner of the piece of forest área exploited.
For around 10 years now, “Alternare”, a farmers’ training center for local families to learn about alternative ways for a sustainable life has been inviting people in this very the region to learn to use their own local resources to open a new world of possibilities to make a living and to even grow and develop into potential farmers as desired. Little by little over the years, this local but really successful projects has been opening a way into the new generations of this local families, who have been realizing how generous our local forests and its habitat can be for their present and future lives, if exploited within a sustainable ways.
Donations: “Abuelito” book for making the family tree, “Mandalas,” “Monarchs’Llife-line," and “Figuras de Fieltro.”
Butterflies Received
This school received Ambassador Butterflies from the following U.S. and Canadian Schools:
Abbotts Creek Elementary, Raleigh, NC
Abbotts Creek Elementary, Raleigh, NC
West Michigan Academy, Grand Rapids, MI
Daisy Brook Elementary, Fremont, MI
Seven Arrows Elementary, Pacific Palisades, CA
Brownell Talbot School, Omaha, NE
Falls Lenox Primary School, Ollmsted Falls, OH
Lee County Conservation, Montrose, IA
Westridge Middle School, Overland Park, KS
Westridge Middle School, Overland Park, KS
Finley-Oates Elementary, Bonham, TX
Perry Innovation Center, Grand Blanc, MI
Bonnie Grimes Elementary, Rogers, AR
Bonnie Grimes Elementary, Rogers, AR
Bonnie Grimes Elementary, Rogers, AR
Bonnie Grimes Elementary, Rogers, AR
Bonnie Grimes Elementary, Rogers, AR
Bonnie Grimes Elementary, Rogers, AR
Bonnie Grimes Elementary, Rogers, AR
York Preparatory Academy, Rock Hill, SC
Bonnie Grimes Elementary, Rogers, AR
Bugg Elementary, Raleigh, NC
Main Dunstable Elementary, Nashua, NH
Surry Elementary, Surry, ME
Surry Elementary, Surry, ME
Starlilng Elementary, Grayson, GA
Noble Elementary, Cleveland Heights, OH
South Side Elementary, Johnson City, TN
Adams Elementary, Midland, MI
Fairless Elementary, Navarre, OH
Twin Lake Elementary, Twin Lake, MI
West Indianola Elementary, Topeka, KS
Greenville Elementary, Greenville, OH
Southdale Elementary, Kettering, OH
Southdale Elementary, Kettering, OH
Southdale Elementary, Kettering, OH
Awakening Seed School, Phoenix, AZ
Stingfellow Elementary, Moultrie, GA
Southdale Elementary, Kettering, OH
Awakening Seed School, Phoenix, AZ
Olson Elementary, Verona, WI
Olson Elementary, Verona, WI
Cantiague Elementary, Jericho, NY
Olson Elementary, Verona, WI
John Hanson Montessori School, Oxon Hill, MD
Charles Campagne School Library, Bethpage, NY
Charles Campagne School Library, Bethpage, NY
Charles Campagne School Library, Bethpage, NY
Charles Campagne School Library, Bethpage, NY
Brassfield Elementary, Raleigh, NC
Brassfield Elementary, Raleigh, NC
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