Symbolic Migration Project
Supporting Activities For Classroom Study
The participation deadline for 2019-2020 project was October 11, 2019. Please join us next year.
About the Symbolic Migration 2019-2020
In fall 2019 students across the globe created symbolic monarch butterflies to send to Mexico. Children who live beside the monarchs' winter sanctuaries in Mexico protect the paper butterflies and return them in the spring.
This year's project deadline: October 11, 2019
See Teacher's Packet for step-by-step instructions.
Purchase your Passenger Ticket ($15/class)*
* Supports School Visits in Mexico: To cover the costs of this project, participants must buy a $15 “Passenger Ticket” for each Class Ambassador Butterfly packet subm
Tracking Change
Inspire students to think and act like scientists as they observe seasonal changes in the garden. Use note booking sheets to record soil temperatures, measure growth, and draw and describe the garden. Provide a workplace where they can document discoveries and record questions.
- Journaling with Science Notebooking Pages
Every winter, scientists visit Mexico's 12 traditional sanctuaries and measure the area of forest covered by monarchs. In winter 2018/2019, the colonies covered an area of 6.05 hectares (as of December, 2018). They measure area because estimates of individual butterflies in a colony vary too widely to be reliable. Such estimates range from 10 to 50 million monarchs per hectare.
Background
Every year monarchs migrate to Mexico from across eastern North America. They cluster by the millions in 12 mountain sanctuaries. Because the butterflies are gathered in one small region of Mexico, scientists have a chance to estimate the size of the entire migratory population once each year.
Explore authentic data through graphs and maps.
1. Explore how scientists estimate the size of the monarch population in Mexico's overwintering region each year.
