Over the last six years the University of Minnesota Monarch Lab has collaborated with the US Forest Service to reach teachers around the country with the latest in monarch butterfly biology and ecology. In turn, teachers pass the information on to their students and hope to ignite a passion for conservation.
The North American Monarch Instituteaims to create a network of collaboration along the monarch migration flyway route to Mexico. This week the three-day Institute is in Milwaukee for the first time.
Over two dozen teachers from Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan came to the Urban Ecology Center in the Menomonee Valley. There teachers learned techniques and activities surrounding the monarch butterfly to bring to their own students.
Monarchs in the Classroom coordinator Katie-Lynn Bunney explains that this program allows teachers to bring a different type of syllabus to their classroom that will stick with the children in years beyond.
"Having those early childhood and youth experiences in nature creates better environmentalists and conservationists, people who have better respect for the land and our resources, which in turn makes for a better world," explains Bunney.
This program has traveled to many cities, but Bunney thinks it is a good fit for the city of Milwaukee and its diverse residents.
"We are able to reach out to a wide range of people and get those high risk kids outside doing things with monarchs," says Bunney.
