Flying south with the butterflies

[Mona Miller]

http://www.galesburg.com/news/x18206471 ... utterflies
Flying south with the butterflies
Two educators head to Mexico for week of studying
By MICHELLE SHERMAN
Posted Feb 14, 2009 @ 11:01 PM

GALESBURG -
Two area educators departed Saturday for Mexico to spend a week studying
butterflies.

Roxanne Green, a fourth-grade teacher at Gale Elementary School, and Teresa
Sanford, the Knox County Farm Bureau's "Miss Aggie," will head to Mexico
City through the Monarch Teacher Network. The New Jersey-based group aims to
spread awareness of and education about butterflies throughout the world.

Rhonda Brady of the Knox County Area Project will take a similar trip in
March.

"Basically, their goal is to have workshops for teachers and people
interested in butterflies in all 50 states," Green said. "Their philosophy
is that this is an international natural resource because the butterfly does
a complete circling migration (through North America). Canada and the United
States are the breeding grounds for the new butterflies. (Since) they can't
survive the cold, Mexico is where they go in the winter."

A group of 30 butterfly enthusiasts will take part in the trip, which will
include some sightseeing and opportunities to interact with Mexican
schoolchildren.

They will spend a lot of time at two recently created butterfly sanctuaries,
where the insects literally blanket the trees during their migration.

"They say it's almost like a spiritual awakening to go and walk in these
sanctuaries," she said. "You kind of see where they're trying to get and
recognize what a long trip it is.

"It's a long trip for people in an airplane; these are little butterflies.
It's pretty amazing to realize that they make this 2,000-mile journey."

Green teaches her students about butterflies each year, and her class
hatches and releases several monarch butterflies each fall. Her trip to
Mexico, she says, will help her gain more first-hand information to share
with her students.

It also has helped her integrate instruction about Mexico and the Spanish
language recently as her students have gotten interested in the things she
will see and do.

"They're learning a little bit of Spanish," she said. "We're making
bilingual books that the kids are going to put together and I'll be taking
to Mexico" to give to Mexican students.
Green also hopes to maintain a blog with pictures from her trip at
http://www.mrsgreenmigrates.blogspot.com

[keithpetrosky]

Sounds like that will be an amazing ride!