Lockport students help preserve endangered monarch butterfly

Each fall, the second grade students at St. Dennis Catholic School in Lockport begin the school year by studying the cycle of life of monarch butterflies in their butterfly garden, from finding the eggs to releasing the adult butterflies.

Nancy Kuhajda, extension program coordinator for agriculture and natural resources at the University of Illinois extension in Will County, said master gardener Fran Corn and St. Dennis second grade teacher Susie Cempel, who retired at the end of the 2021-22 school year, created the school’s monarch way station in 2015.

“This is a very specific project that provides larval food – milkweed, and nectar food, an assortment of flowers – in order to create more habitats for monarch butterflies,” Kuhajda said. “The idea was to have the children experience rearing the monarchs from the caterpillar state to the release of adults.”

Kuhajda said people sometimes buy butterfly kits to hold the project in the spring. But spring is not the best time for the project, she said. One, few nectar plants are available at that time of year, she said. Two, the monarchs that hatch will live only 30 days, she said.

But monarchs that hatch in the fall live nine months and are called the “super generation,” Kuhajda said.

“The monarchs you see in August through September are the monarchs that fly 4,000 miles to Mexico,” Kuhajda said. “This year, we saw very few monarchs until migration time. People reported seeing less than five to 10 monarchs the entire summer.”

Kuhajda said the nine-month monarch flies to Mexico, winters there and then flies to the Texas-Oklahoma area in the spring, where they mate and die. Their offspring hatch and migrate north to lay eggs; they die after 30 days. The second generation is born in June, the third generation is born in July, and the fourth generation is born in August.

All generations live for only 30 days, except the fourth, which lives for nine months, Kuhajda said.

“Monarchs are the smallest migrating animal that we have,” Kuhajda said. “The loss of their habitat has impacted their numbers. So by having these little monarch way stations, even in small sports in schoolyards or home gardens, is proven to aid monarch populations.”

The students love watching the monarchs life stages unfold before their eyes, Kuhajda said.

“The caterpillar starts out about the size of an eyelash,” Kuhajda said. “Then they get to be the size of a little finger before they pupate into a chrysalis.”

After 10 days or so, students can see the monarch’s black, white and orange colors through the chrysalis. The monarch hatches the next day. Its body is fat with fluid and its wings are crushed. In the next two to four hours, the monarch must begin pumping fluids from its body into the wings and seal it there.

“The insect has to do it on their own,” Kuhajda said. “I’ve had people call me after they tried to help the butterfly out of its chrysalis, and it ended up not being viable.”

Because monarchs are cold-blooded, they cannot regulate their body temperatures and must be released on a warm day within 36 hours, Kuhajda said. If they must remain inside a little longer, they need freshly cut nectar flowers, such as zinnias, and water: a jar lid filled with sand or tiny gravel and just enough water to form a “pond,” she said.

Fortunately, the weather was monarch-perfect when the second graders released their monarchs.

“They were released on a beautiful sunny day and they all flew off quickly,” Kuhajda said.

Angela Lappa, Semple’s successor, said she collaborated with first grade teacher Brianna Gehant for the monarch project this year, since the project will pass to the first grade next year.

Lappa said after the students searched for the monarch eggs on the milkweed in the garden and brought the eggs inside, they participated in monarch activities and games inspired by the monarch’s lifecycle, such as journaling and drawing their observations.

The students also pretended they were butterflies by flapping their wings and migrating to the other end of an outside field, Lappa said. Along the way, they responded to prompts, such as gathering in groups for protection and waiting a day to fly because “there was frost last night,” Lappa said.

They learned that monarchs lay up to 500 eggs at one time, that their colors warn predators that monarchs are poisonous and that their habitat is endangered and how people can help, Lappa said.

“I conveyed to the kids that it’s something they can do: Ask Mom to stop at the garden store and get some milkweed, if they don’t mind ... and helping them to be able to spot it [milkweed] in the park and being more aware of how vital that plant is to their [monarchs] well-being,” Lappa said.

Lappa said the release was bittersweet.

“When we finally had to let them go, some kids were sad at the end,” Lappa said. “But they knew it was good for the butterflies. They had to fly to get to the warm weather before it got too cold here.”

Kuhajda said the upside of the COVID-19 pandemic is that people discovered the natural world and appreciated it more. People can create a monarch way station in a small space, even a container, and the activity is fascinating for all ages, she said.

“I always say that it doesn’t matter how old you are,” Kuhajda said. “Everybody is 10 years old when they see the butterflies emerge.”

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Brianna Gehant, a 1st grade teacher at St. Dennis School, removes a cover of the Monarch Butterfly cage as the 1st and 2nd graders watch. Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022, in Lockport. (Gary Middendorf - gmiddendorf@shawmedia.com/Gary Middendorf)