Pupils’ project takes flight

Austintown first-graders send care packages to Mexico to teach pupils about the monarch butterfly.

By Elise Franco

AUSTINTOWN — Lynn Kirk Elementary first-graders have become ambassadors of peace, friendship and goodwill by participating in a project to help teach Mexican classrooms about the monarch butterfly.

As a part of the Symbolic Migration program, the pupils and teachers colored paper butterflies to send to classes in the cities of Ocampo and Angangueo in Michoac °n, a state in Mexico.

On Nov. 2, the Mexican pupils received packages of paper butterflies and information on the monarch from classrooms all over the United States; three classes at Lynn Kirk were among them.

The packages also include information on the monarch and messages of support and gratitude for taking care of the actual butterflies, which migrate in early November and stay through the spring.

“They’re sent down to Mexico at the same time the real monarchs are flying south,” Jennier Hlasta, who discovered the project while browsing the Internet, said. “They’ll then be sent to students who live there in the sanctuaries where real monarchs live.”

She said the kids will hang the paper butterflies in their classrooms and learn about them.

“In the spring the real butterflies will start coming back to the U.S., and the Mexican students will send our butterflies back,” said Hlasta, whose son, Ben, participated in the project.

She said the packages from the three first-grade classrooms were put together starting in the beginning of October, after she gave a short presentation to her son’s class.

“My son helped me,” Hlasta said. “We asked his teacher at school if we could do this, and she talked to the other first-grade students’ teachers and they all wanted to do it.”

Ben’s teacher, Tamara Deeley, said she thought the project would coincide well with a lesson she was already teaching the class.

“The project will be completed in the spring,” she said. “And we were able to discuss the differences between migration and hibernation.”

Deeley said it was also an opportunity for the three classes to work together.

“We did it as an entire first grade,” she said. “We’re often isolated, so to do this together was nice.”

Deeley said she decorated her butterfly to look like a real monarch.

Ben said he took more creative liberties with his design.

“I drew all kinds of planets on it,” he said.

Ben said he liked being able to learn about the monarchs. “My mom told us that they go to Mexico, and then the kids in Mexico learn about them.”

Ben’s classmate, Madelyn Merlo, said her favorite part was seeing the monarch up-close. “We got to feel the butterfly’s wings,” she said.

Deeley said the project was a good experience for all three classrooms.

“They understood well about the butterflies,” she said. “We got to talk about global issues, and they got to see just how far a butterfly travels.”

Deeley said the paper nonarchs, along with the real ones, are due back to the states in May.

“We’re hoping to have them back for Cinco de Mayo,” she said. “We’re planning a celebration, and we’re hoping to give them back to the kids on that day.”

efranco@vindy.com