By David Taylor / Managing Editor
Monday was fly day for dozens of monarch butterflies who had been raised in captivity by several first-grade classes at B. H. Hamblen Elementary school in Channelview. Nurturing the eggs laid by migrating female butterflies and donated to the classes by Briscoe Cain, Sr., today was release day for the colorfully winged insects.
“The kids got to experience the whole process of the chrysalis and then get to see our butterfly females,” said a proud Vanessa Lopez, first-grade teacher at Hamblen.
She guided her students’ knowledge with videos, craft projects and ultimately the care of live butterflies in her classroom.
“I read to them about how the monarch butterfly migrates to Florida, California, and Mexico for warm places. Together we wrote about what happens first, the egg stage, and then the caterpillar hatches. We watched as the caterpillar turns into the chrysalis and then the birth of the butterfly,” she said purposefully.
Students were amazed to learn that butterfly’s taste with sensors on their feet allowing them to detect if a leaf is safe for laying eggs or if a plant provides enough nourishment for their larvae.
They were also surprised to learn that the wings of butterflies are actually clear. The vibrant colors and patterns come from thousands of tiny, layered scales.
Learning that adult butterflies can only consume liquids, Cain, Sr., who was joined by his son State Representative Briscoe Cain, taught the students to make a nectar cocktail of six parts water and one part honey to feed them and place it on a slice of orange.
During eclose, the final stage of metamorphosis, Lopez said her class butterflies played hide and seek.
“A lot of the teachers experienced that too. They wouldn’t come out and be seen,” she said.
The process takes approximately 8 to 15 days to complete.
“For those that we did see the transformation, it only took about 60 seconds. They come out and then they hang upside down,” she said.
A simple spot on the wings helped students determine which was male and female. They were also inspired to learn that only two percent of the butterflies in nature survive, while nearly 100 percent in captivity survive.
“They are big fructose lovers and don’t bite,” Cain, Sr. told the curious classes.
He also explained that with wind shear from the Gulf of America, the extreme migrators could travel up to 50 miles per day trekking some 3,000 miles to Canada for the summer and back to Mexico for the winter.
“We live in the flyway here in Texas,” he said. “We live on Trinity Bay, and they have flown by us by the hundreds,” Cain related to the children.
For five years, Cain has been sharing his love of monarch butterflies with the students and staff at Hamblen Elementary in Channelview. He is now one of those who count the number of butterflies in migration.
Before adjourning class, students asked Cain questions, one of them if the butterflies also had grandma’s and grandpas.
“Yes and even great grandparents,” he said.
Butterflies also have a remarkable sort of internal GPS that helps guide them to some of the same trees as their ancestors for wintering spots.
First-grade teacher Sharon Trudel met Cain and his wife through church and expressed an interest in hosting him to share his love of monarchs with her class and now the enter first grade.
“He just stepped up and said, ‘Let’s do it!’” she said.
The students, she said, are fully engaged.
“When you see their faces light up, learning about the life cycle of a butterfly, which carries over into every life cycle, it’s great,” she said.
The students, she said, are no longer afraid of butterflies and allow them to land on them whenever they want.
At the end of the celebration, Cain, Sr. was presented with a cache of thank you notes and thoughts of gratitude for sharing his gift and knowledge of butterflies.
Leave a Comment: