Jim Gilbert Monarch Home Page Challenge Questions Today's News Spring's Journey North Report Your Sightings Teacher's Manual Search Journey North return to: A/CPB

Note to Teachers: Here are some guiding questions which might help students analyze the data and integrate the information they know about monarch migration. Please try to elicit these ideas from students rather than provide them to the class: Consider the Data How many sightings were collected each year during the month of March? What was the date of the first U.S. sighting each spring? Are there towns for which you have data in both 1997 & 1998? In what ways is the migration the same both years? In what ways is it different? What might be causing any differences you see? What is the significance of the over-wintering monarch sightings in the U.S.? Consider How the Data Were Collected In addition to analyzing the data itself, remember to condsider the way the data were collected: What do you know about the observers? How might the behavior of the observers have been different? From one person to the next? From one year to the next? How would this affect the results? If you were to design a standard protocol by which monarch migration data should be collected, what methods should be followed by all observers? (For example: The same observers, the same amount of time observing, the same time of day, the same places, etc.) In addition to date and location, what other information would be useful to record?