Goodbye butterflies...

Our butterfly project is now finished. The children did many activities to reflect on their learning.

We learned the answers to the remaining student questions about butterflies.

* Did you know that some butterflies migrate south to spend the winter in a warmer place? Monarch butterflies fly to Mexico and then return back north in the spring. Other butterflies stay in the caterpillar or chrysalis form to hibernate over the winter because of a lack of food and warmth in the environment.

* Did you know that butterflies know where south is by visually tracking where the sun is and by using the Earth's magnetic field. (Butterflies have geomagnetic receptors in their antennae.)

* Did you know that butterflies can fly over 1 kilometre high above the surface of the Earth? That's like two CN Towers stacked on top of each other!

To understand more about what happens during metamorphosis inside the chrysalis, the class did an activity with Lego bricks. Each child used 10 bricks to make a long shape to represent a caterpillar. Then these Lego caterpillars were put in small ziplock bags. The challenge for the students was to for them to take apart the Lego caterpillars and reassemble the bricks into butterfly shapes, without opening the bag. It wasn't easy! We discussed how amazing it was that in real life, the caterpillar changes into caterpillar "soup" and reassembles itself into a butterfly, all within the small space of its chrysalis.

The class counted 39 different science facts they learned about butterflies! The students wrote these facts on cards and these fact cards are now part of our butterfly display in the hallway.

Finally, each child chose an empty chrysalis to put into a clear plastic container to keep as a memory of this class science project.

Here is a short video about the Monarch butterfly: