as They Fly Overhead?
Give your students time to ponder how they could use the photos to help answer the question. Do they come up with the idea to look for something familiar in each picture and then use relative size to come up with an answer? Is their reasoning sound? For example, "I can see a U.S. flag in the picture but I can hardly see its stars (at 500 feet). A monarch is much smaller than the blue portion of the flag, so I don't think I would see a monarch."
Have students use this handout to record their thinking.
2)
Design an Experiment
Where, between 0 and 500 feet, do monarchs disappear from
view? Before reading the two experiments at the
links below, consider having students imagine, describe and conduct their
own experiments.
- Experiment #1: Journey North's Monarch Migration Eye Test
- Experiment #2: Dr. Brower's Flight Height Experiment
Try the Monarch Migration Eye Test!
3)
Reflect in Science Journals
Show students this
graphic and read this statement from Monarch scientist Dr. Bill Calvert:
"On the best migration days we often see the fewest butterflies. On the worst days we often see the most."
Have students refect on this in their science journals. Look for students to understand that monarch migration can be invisible to us. Monarchs can fly as high as two miles above the Earth. We can't see monarchs when they fly more than about 300 feet high. When we watch migration from the ground, there is a large gap overhead where monarchs can travel and we can't see them. Therefore, nobody knows for sure how high monarchs fly during their long migration. Our ability to observe migration is quite limited.
We can't
see monarchs from the ground when they fly in the two-mile high gap shown.
(See graphic)
4)
Consider Implications for Journey North's Monarch Study
Discuss how data is collected for Journey North's monarch migration
maps. Remind students, Journey North tracks migration based on
visual observations. Ask, If monarchs disappear from view
at a few hundred feet high, how might that affect the monarch migration
data, maps, and conclusions?
As a class, pay attention to how Journey North describes the migration
maps and the progress. The wording should be explicit about the observation
("based on what the fifth graders saw" or "according
to observers"). It should not go beyond what the data support.
Watch out for phrases such as, "there were no monarchs migrating
today". Discuss why such a statement would be inaccurate.
Journey North tracks migration based on visual observations. This migration map only shows what people saw.
This activity invites students to create a classroom chart, to scale, that depicts the heights of everything from trees to monarchs to jets!
