1. Introduce the Concept of Ambassadorship
Tell students they are about to design a Symbolic Butterfly that will travel to Mexico as an ambassador. Explain that the role of an ambassador is to cultivate friendship and build cooperation. Use students' familiarity with friendship and cooperation to help them understand ambassadorship. Ask:
How can you use your symbolic monarch to begin a friendship with children who live near the monarch's winter home in Mexico?
2. Explore Sample Ambassador Butterflies
Take a look at butterflies American and Canadian children have made and sent. How do they communicate friendship? What pictures, language, and symbols do they include in their design?
Our butterfly will travel to Mexico to represent our class in friendship, and be an ambassador for monarch conservation.
- What do friends share? (games, favorite foods, music, holidays).
- What's unique about our school, state, country, and culture?
- What do we want to show with our butterfly? (friendship, appreciation, interest in monarchs)
- How can we show our interest and concern for monarch butterfly conservation? (milkweed, flowers, butterfly garden, oyamel fir trees, other habitat features)
Note: The children who will receive your butterfly speak Spanish, not English.
4. Make Your Symbolic Butterfly
Now students are ready to make their own monarch ambassador!