Symbolic Migration at the Arboretum

On October 9, 2022, Jennifer Mitchell, UW–Madison Arboretum Youth and Community Education Coordinator, hosted a Family Nature Program event. The day was sunny and warm, a perfect day for welcoming the fall season. As is typical of these events, children, parents, and grandparents all joined to explore the prairies and woodlands. Jennifer uses a diversity of teaching methods to engage and inspire young and old alike. For younger children in the group, there was a reading. Older members found milkweed pods and blew the seeds into the wind in hopes that they landed on soil and would grow into new milkweed plants for monarch butterflies. 

Energized by the walk, participants returned to the Arboretum’s outdoor classroom to learn about monarch butterfly migration and to participate in the Symbolic Migration project. Participants expressed amazement that the monarchs they observed on late blooming flowers in the Arboretum’s Native Plant Garden would fly all the way to Mexico to take refuge during our long winter months here in Wisconsin. 

As part of the Symbolic Migration project, every family made a small drawing to represent their family, and these were glued onto our Ambassador Butterfly. Participants had photographs of monarchs that they also glued onto our Ambassador Butterfly. Each child made a life-sized butterfly to send along with the Ambassador Butterfly. For a take home activity, each family made collages, with the map from the “Hello friends” letter. Participants added drawings and photographs of the butterflies, the flowers, and the trees they saw during their walk in the Arboretum that day.