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A Guided Tour for Teachers
Are you ready to embark on a real-time, scientific journey to Mexico with monarch butterflies and other citizen scientists? This Fall Monarch Migration Guided Tour is your planning resource. Each step in this guide includes essential goals, lesson activities, instructional materials and more...everything you'll need to implement an inquiry-based learning experience for your students. Start with wonder...and discover the magic of monarch migration. |
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Step
1: Invitation to Wonder
Build
a sense of wonder about monarchs and migration. Start with the big questions
surrounding monarch butterfly migration. Invite students to be citizen
scientists, actively engaged in real-world, real-time scientific inquiry
with Journey North as your guide.
- Slideshow #1: The Magic of Monarch Butterfly Migration
Teacher Guide Includes Parent letter, blank map, slideshow & planning guide, journal cover, journal pages, reproducibles (Journal Page for Research Questions, Research Chart), related links, vocabulary. |
Step
2: Observe and Identify
Prepare your students for their role as citizen
scientists by cultivating their observation and identification skills.
Help them to positively identify a monarch butterfly by its distinctive
field marks and unique characteristics. Hundreds of observers track
the monarch's migration to Mexico and back every fall and spring. These
can observers expand the eyes and ears of scientists in ways not possible
before the Internet, but reports from observers must be accurate for
the data to have be valid and useful.
- Slideshow #2: Do You Know a Monarch When You See One?
Teacher Guide Includes Slideshow & planning guide, note-taking chart, reproducibles (Draw & Describe, Compare & Contrast, Monarch ID Card, Certificates of Excellence), related links, vocabulary. |
Step
3: Review and Report Observations
What kind
of observations does Journey North collect and how are they important?
Explore authentic field observations. The observations citizen scientists
contribute to Journey North are valuable to scientists. Dynamic, real-time
migration maps show when and where monarchs and monarch habitat are
important.
- Slideshow #3: When, Where and How to Watch Fall Migration
Teacher Guide Includes Slideshow & planning guide, reproducibles (Data-hunt Guide Sheet, Citizen Science Report Cards), fall migration observation practice activities & data sheets, related links, vocabulary. |
Step
4: Examine Needs and Habitat
Monarchs
have basic needs. They survive only in environments in which their needs
are met. How is monarch habitat changing in your hometown and how do
these changes affect monarchs? In this lesson, students make outdoor
observations to explore these questions. Using the information they
collect and the observations they make, students formulate predictions,
draw conclusions and share their findings in creative ways.
- Teacher Guide #4: Fall Habitat Observations
Includes Images of seasonal change, reproducibles (Thinking Questions, Find-the-facts Clue Cards, Find-the-facts Sentences, Research Chart), related links, vocabulary. |
Step
5: Follow the Migration!
Monarch Migration Updates are the core of Journey
North's live program. They include live migration maps, authentic field
observations from citizen scientists, photo of the week, they
summarize news about the migrations and include related lessons and
links.
Read
the News:
Monarch
Migration Updates are the core of Journey North's live program.
They include real-time migration maps and challenge questions, authentic
field observations from citizen scientists, they summarize news about
the migrations and include related lessons and links. Invite students
to collect and reflect on the news.
- Read: Focus on learning with Journey North Migration Updates
Build
a Travel Journal
As you embark
on your journey with the monarchs, invite students to begin building
travel journals. Page by page, students collect and reflect on their
observations and learning experiences. The journal is a workplace where
students document discoveries, explore ever-changing events, record
compelling questions, and chronicle each step of their scientific journey.
Here are the first pages:
- Journal Pages: Spring Migration
- Journal Pages: Fall Migration
