Monarch Watch Fall Open House

Come visit us this Saturday – in person or online! 🙂

Monarch Watch Open House
Saturday, 6 September 2008 8am-3pm

Join us at our Fall Open House at Foley Hall (KU West Campus) on Saturday, September 6th to celebrate the arrival of migrating monarchs coming from the north. This free event is designed to please children and adults alike.

At the Open House you can learn about creating Monarch Waystations and see the magnificent butterfly and pollinator garden created and maintained by Margarete Johnson and the Douglas County Master Gardeners. Weather permitting, you will see an abundance of butterflies and numerous other small but important pollinators. On a good day over 20 species of butterflies visit the garden. The Biohouse, adjacent to the garden, will be filled with monarchs and other species. The Biohouse and garden contain numerous butterfly flowers. Bring your cameras. It is well worth a visit.

As usual, we will provide refreshments, lots of show & tell (including a honey bee observation hive and some “Oh, my!” insects you may have never seen before), tours of our gardens and lab space, hands-on activities, games, videos, monarch tagging demonstrations, iChat videoconferencing, and, of course, lots of monarch caterpillars, pupae, and butterflies!

We will also have a limited number of Monarch pupae (to emerge as a butterfly at home or at school) that will be given to each child in attendance, while supply lasts.

If you can’t be there, be sure to visit us online at the address below to see what we’re doing – we plan on having at least a couple of webcams broadcasting the day’s events.

Again, the Monarch Watch Fall Open House will be at Foley Hall on KU’s West Campus, Lawrence, KS on Saturday, 6 September 2008 8am-3pm. For more information, a map, and directions, visit

For images of some of the butterflies and caterpillars seen at last year’s event see the photo gallery at: www2.ljworld.com/photos/galleries/2007/sep/07/butterflies/