On a wing and a cheer, more than 50 monarch butterflies left
their birthplace at the Farnsworth Middle School Friday afternoon
for their ancestral winter grounds in northern Mexico.
More than 50 students gathered in the school's courtyard, where
the butterflies were raised, and launched the orange and black
beauties on their transcontinental migration, chanting, ``Gotta
go, gotta go, gotta go to Mexico,'' to speed the insects on
``It's getting buggy out here,'' said science supervisor Alan
Fiero, sporting one of his many butterfly ties.
Four years ago, Fiero said, he began a lesson inside the school
to replicate the Pine Bush environment around the campus, particularly
the plants preferred by the endangered Karner blue butterflies.
Studying them led Fiero and his students to catch and raise
five to 10 species of local butterflies, including monarchs.
A nationwide program through the University of Kansas involves
tagging and releasing the king of butterflies to monitor its
numbers each year. Fiero thought the program was perfect for
For the past three summers, students have raised and bred the
butterflies in a greenhouse with walls of wire mesh. Plastic
Chinese restaurant takeout food containers are excellent places
to hatch cocoons, said teacher Demian Singleton. The students
gave public tours of their gardens while they raised the butterflies'
When the third generation hatches each fall, students place
tiny, white stickers on their wings, and off they fly. Earlier
generations die before they can migrate; butterflies live about
``It's like kind of watching a baby or something,'' said eighth-grader
Lily Rowen, 13.
The numbered stickers include the address to contact if the
butterflies are found, although the farthest teachers said they
have heard from is Voorheesville.
The importance of tagging rose this year. Cold weather in Mexico
killed many butterflies last year. Fiero said scientists hope
to find out how much the monarchs suffered this time by counting
The butterfly facts pale, however, to other lessons the project
offers his students, Fiero said: ``They learn to work with the
public. They become the teachers. It's a maturing process for
He waxed poetic, too, calling the butterflies a metaphor for
pubescence. ``Although you may be awkward at the start,'' he
said, ``You become beautiful and fly away.''
Eighth-grader Jen Meglino, 13, put it another way: ``It's, like,
amazing, oh my God, I can't even explain it, it's so cool.''
Printed in the October/November 2002 Newsletter