The Best In-person Professional Development- Monarch Teacher Network Workshops 2012

The best cross-curricular professional development I have ever been a part of was the Monarch Teacher Network’s “Teaching and Learning with Monarch Butterflies”.  I first took the workshop back in 2006 and I still volunteer as a staff leader every summer.  It’s fabulous and I can’t recommend it enough!  Below you will find information about this summer’s workshops in the US and Canada.   (Clicking on the link will take you directly to a registration form for that workshop).

US Dates

June

June 13– 14:    Leesburg, Virginia (Loudoun County, DC Area)

June 14-15:    UC-Santa Barbara; Santa Barbara, California

June 18-19:    Lyonia Environmental Center; Deltona; Florida (Volusia County)

June 18-19:    Coyote Hills Regional Park; Freemont, California

June 20-21:    Gilroy Gardens Family Theme Park; Gilroy, California (Santa Clara County)

June 25– 26:    Union Mill and Daniels Run schools in Fairfax County, Virginia (Fairfax County, DC area)

June 25– 26:    Charlotte Country Day School; Charlotte, North Carolina

July

July 30-31:    Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center; Sioux City, Iowa

August

Aug 2-3:    Heartland AEA; Johnston, Iowa (Des Moines area)

Aug 2-3:    Quad Cities Botanical Center; Rock Island, Illinois  

Aug 6-7:    Frankfort Square Park District; Frankfort, Illinois (Chicago area)

Aug 13-14:    William Paterson University; Wayne, New Jersey (Passaic County, NYC area)

Aug 14-15:    Interpretive Center in Freedom Park; Williamsburg, Virginia

Aug 16-17:      Raritan Valley Community College; New Jersey (Somerset County)

Aug 20-21:    EIRC facility; Mullica Hill, New Jersey (Gloucester County, Philadelphia area)

Aug 20-21:    The Boston Nature Center; Mattapan, Massachusetts (Boston Area)

Aug 22-23:    Childrens Museum of New Hampshire; Dover, New Hamphsire

For more information or if there is no registration form available: contact: Brian Hayes at bhayes@eirc.org856-582-7000 x110 or write  Monarch Teacher Network™ at EIRC – MTN, South Jersey Technology Park,  107 Gilbreth Parkway, Suite 200, Mullica Hill, NJ 08062.  fax: 856-582-4206.

Canada

• July 10 & 11, 2012, REGINA, Saskatchewan
• July 10 & 11, 2012, SUMMERSIDE, Prince Edward Island
• July 11 & 12, 2012, OTTAWA,  Ontario (in English)
• July 17 & 18, 2012, WINNIPEG, Manitoba
• July 18 & 19, 2012, OTTAWA, Ontario (en Français)
• July 24 & 25, 2012, OSHAWA, Ontario
• July 26 & 27, 2012, CAMBRIDGE, Ontario
• July 31 & Aug. 1, 2012, M’CHIGEENG, Manitoulin Island, Ontario
• July 31 & Aug. 1, 2012, WOODBRIDGE, Ontario
• Aug. 16 & 17, 2012, TATAMAGOUCHE (NORTH SHORE), Nova Scotia
• Aug. 21 & 22, 2012, PORT ROWAN (near Long Point), Ontario

Four Years Ago, I Was In Mexico….

Four years ago this month, I visited the monarch butterfly’s overwintering grounds in Michoacan, Mexico.  Today, the same towns I visited are under attack from drug lords and gangs.  It breaks my heart that travel restrictions prohibit other teachers from traveling there with the Monarch Teacher Network  right now.

To celebrate the beauty and magic of that trip, I wanted to link to the posts I shared after my trip. Join me in reminiscing by reading some of my updates from the trip, linked below.

Monarch Teacher Network: Day 1 in Mexico

Monarch Teacher Network: Day 2 in Mexico

Monarch Teacher Network: Day 3 in Mexico

Monarch Teacher Network: Day 4 in Mexico

Monarch Teacher Network: Day 5 in Mexico 

 

My trip to Mexico, and all of my dealings with the Monarch Teacher Network, made up some of the most powerful professional development I have ever participated in.  I still act as staff at the annual summer workshops here in NJ and I hope to start traveling with some of the workshops in the next few years.  Check out the website- if they are offering a workshop near you I highly recommend it.

The Butterfly’s Daughter by Mary Alice Monroe

Stop what you are doing and go pick up this book. The Butterfly’s Daughter by Mary Alice Monroe was just the book I needed to get out of my reading slump and I have been recommending it to everyone I know.  I have a personal connection to the story of the monarch butterfly’s migration, but this is a story that many people will identify with.

Luz Avila’s mother abandoned her as a child and she was raised by her Abuela.  Now that she is in her twenties, Luz takes care of her grandmother.  She works a factory job, dreaming of the day she will be able to go back to school.  But the job pays the bills and lets her grandmother live life relatively worry-free.  But when Abuela suddenly announces that she wants to take Luz home, to visit their family in Mexico, it breaks Luz’s heart to have to say no.  She promises that they will go one day, after they save the money and pay off a few more bills.  Abuela dies before plans can be made, and Luz is plagued with regret.  Then she wakes up a few days after the funeral and sees an out-of-season monarch butterfly in the garden that her abuela so loved.  It’s a sign, and Luz takes it to heart.  For the first time in her life, she throws caution to the wind and lives life spontaneously.  In a few short days she is in an old, beat-up VW bug on her way from Milwaukee to Mexico.  She carries Abuela’s ashes with her, planning to scatter them in the monarch sanctuaries near her family’s ancestral home in Angangueo, Mexico.

This is a quest story, a journey, both spiritually and physically.  Along the way Luz meets women who leave an imprint on her life and her heart, changing the way she looks at the world.  Each woman alters the flight path a little more, but they all enrich Luz’s life.  And when her mother reappears in her life, Luz must decide which way to fly.

As a monarchaholic, I know this book would affect me deeply.  But I also believe the casual reader will find themselves immersed in the tale of the monarch butterfly.  And the descriptions!  Oh, the language in this book!  I’ve been to Angangueo, to the sanctuaries, and I’ve visited Alternare in Michoacan.  Reading The Butterfly’s Daughter transported me back to the dusty dirt roads high in the Transvolcanic Mountains.  I could smell the fresh blue corn tortillas and hear the sound the butterfly wings beating in the blue sky.  The language of the Purepuchuan people rings in my ears even now.  (Read about my time in Michoacan).  Monroe traveled to the sanctuaries with Monarchs Across Georgia, a group very similar to my beloved Monarch Teacher Network, and the authenticity of her book speaks volumes about that trip.  I could not put the book down.

Highly, highly recommended.  Published for adults, but with definitely crossover YA appeal.

*copy purchased by me  

 

 

Want to visit the sanctuaries?  Read my post about an amazing professional development opportunity for teachers!

Monarch News

Just a few links to some monarch butterfly news.  The migration is reaching farther north each week, and I am hoping to see my first monarch sometime soon!

• The latest Journey North update has maps of the monarch sightings and milkweed growth over the past week.  You can sign up to get the weekly updates via email.
• The New Jersey School-Age Care Coalition has just posted a guide to creating a butterfly garden in NJ school yards, as part of it’s Afterschool Care programs.  The brochure is detailed and includes some fantastic ideas.
• Sign up for Pollinator LIVE! On May 12, 2010, you can join a live webcast from the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. ET. Participants can drop in at any time during this full day of webcasts to learn about pollination, pollinators, participatory science projects, the latest about monarch butterflies, and how to attract pollinators to your schoolyard. Experts will answer your students’ questions.  You can also view the webcasts later on the website, which I will be doing with my classes on Thursday.  (Students have a half day Wednesday, so we can’t participate live.)

And if you are interested in getting involved with the Monarch Teacher Network (like me!), there are workshops being offered all over the country.  Check out the program’s website and the registration form here.

Workshops 2010

June Workshops

[  ] June 14-15:   Naples Botanical Garden; Naples, Florida (Collier County)

[  ] June 15-16:   Leisure Park Elementary School; Broken Arrow, Oklahoma (Tulsa area)

[  ] June 21-22:   Region 14 Education Service Center; Abilene, Texas

[  ] June 23-24: Harper Park Middle School; Leesburg, Virginia (Loudoun County, DC area)

[  ] June 28-29:   Parkdale High School; Maryland (Prince Georges County, DC area)

July Workshops:

[  ] July 26-27: Webster Hill School; West Hartford, Connecticut

[  ] July 29-30: The Advent School; Boston, Massachusetts

August Workshops:

[  ] Aug   2-3:      Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center; Sioux City, Iowa

[  ] Aug   5-6:      Sacred Heart School; West Des Moines, Iowa

[  ] Aug   5-6:      Knox Agri-Center; Galesburg, Illinois (Peoria area)

[  ] Aug 11-12:    Living Classrooms; Washington DC (Stuart Hobson MS)

[  ] Aug 16-17:    William Paterson University; New Jersey (Passaic County, New York City area)

[  ] Aug 17-18:    Hartshorn Arboretum (Essex County, New York City area)

[  ] Aug 19-20: EIRC facility; Mullica Hill, New Jersey (Gloucester County, Philadelphia area)

[  ] Aug 19-20: Peabody Museum; Yale University, Connecticut (New Haven Area)

Also, the Voices program is expanding!  There is a workshop being offered in June in Texas.  I so wish I could go.  For more information, check out the website.  You can also see my students’ Voices project on the blog a few years ago, along with the book we made.

Monarch Butterflies, Milkweed, and Migration….

I just finished watching the Insect episode of LIFE on Discovery.  If you haven’t been watching this series, you are seriously missing out.  It is absolutely incredible.

The footage of the monarch migration was stunning and incredible.  Definitely made me “homesick” for Michoacan.  I visited the oyamel forests in Michoacan, Mexico in February 2008.  It was a life-chanigng experience.  The experience was spiritual and standing amongst millions of fluttering wings, the only sound their quiet flapping, was the closest I have ever felt to God.  It’s an experience I wish everyone could live.

Now, the monarchs are in trouble.  The combination of the floods in the reserves this winter and the habitat destruction in the US are forcing the monarchs to disappear.  Due to the deaths from the severe weather in the reserves, scientists think it will take at least 2 years (maybe more) for the population to return to the levels of earlier this year.  Unfortunately, this year’s population was already obscenely low and lower than the last few years.  So we need to do what we can to help.  Planting milkweed is huge and many organizations, like Monarch Watch, are starting campaigns to inform people of the importance of planting milkweed.

There have been numerous news reports on the monarch crisis.  Check out the GMA and CBS News videos.  Tonight’s episode of LIFE seems to have gotten the attention of a lot of people, too.  The Facebook messages and Twitter responses I got from friends and family after the episode aired were awesome.  I had no less than 10 people send me messages asking me things like, “You’ve been there, right?  It looked incredible!  I’d love to go someday”.  How awesome is that?  Airing the footage of the reserves in HD seems to have made a huge difference.  The footage itself was short but stunning.  Hopefully there are many more people out there who thought the same thing and will look into visiting and along the way will learn about planting milkweed, helping the migration, etc.  :)  Even if they never get to Mexico, the monarchs will be in a better position.  And that is something we all benefit from.

To Come and Go Like Magic by Katie Pickard Fawcett

I’ve had an *interesting* week, to say the least.  So when I opened a packed from Random House and saw a book with monarch butterflies on the cover, it was like it was meant to be.  The book had not even been on my radar, but I settled in to read it.

Told in a series of vignettes, To Come and Go Like Magic is the story of twelve-year-old Chili Sue Mahoney. Growing up in 1970′s Kentucky in Appalachia country, Chili dreams of growing up and getting out. Her family and friends can’t understand why she would want to leave home but Chili can’t understand why they won’t let her. But when Miss Matlock is brought in as the new 7th grade substitute teacher, Chili and her friend Willie Bright are both excited. Miss Matlock has traveled around the globe. Town gossips can’t understand she’s come back to the town she grew up in after all this time. Both children are forbidden to befriend her but eagerly start spending time at her house, despite the rumors. As the three spend time together, Chili learns about the world outside Appalachia- rain forests, jungles, foreign lands. But Miss Matlock also teaches her that there’s more to Mercy Hill, Kentucky than Chili gives it credit for: there is beauty all over Mercy Hill, in the most unexpected places.

The vignette style serves this book well. The story flows well without seeming disjointed. At the same time, the reader is able to move through time with Chili without getting bogged down in mundane details. The vignettes reminded me a lot of The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Both focus on a different culture and share the stories through small stories. While Appalachia isn’t a different “culture” for some, it is drastically different from the environment of my students.

There was only one point that bugged me in the story, and most likely no one else will notice. The time period is given as 1970′s Kentucky. However, Miss Matlock tells Chili about the monarch butterfly migration to Mexico. It wasn’t until 1976 that Dr. Fred Urquhart published his findings of the monarch migration in National Geographic. I guess the story could take place in the late 1970′s, but that small detail nagged at me throughout the book. Most people didn’t know about the migration to Mexico until well after the 1970′s and the actual location wasn’t shared by Dr. Urquhart until many years later.

Regardless of the monarch connection (a very small one), this was a great story and one I look forward to recommending to my students.

*Review copy courtesy of publisher

Heartbreaking News from the Monarch Bioreserves

In February 2008, I was privileged enough to travel to Michoacan, Mexico where I visited the monarch butterfly bioreserves with the Monarch Teacher Network.  (Check out my posts from the trip here.)  Right now, a group of friends and teachers is in Mexico where they should be visiting the reserves.  Instead, they are sitting in a hotel in Mexico City, trying to plan their next move.

On Friday, after extreme rainfall across central Mexico, a devastating flood struck the small mountain town of Angangueo in Michoacan. The rain lasted  for over two days and was the heaviest rainfall in over 25 years, according to authorities.
Angangueo is located directly in between two of the monarch reserves and the people there are amazing.  Due to the floods, many homes and lives have been lost.  To make matters worse, much of the mountain forests have been illegally logged, so there have been a great many mudslides in the area of El Rosario.

I can’t imagine what it is like there right now.  The government has declared Angangueo a disaster area and most of the people in the area have been evacuated to other towns. The roads into and out of the area, and up the mountain to the sanctuaries, have been damaged extensively by landslides. According to some eyewitnesses there, the road to El Rosario is impassable.  There has been very little news about the monarchs in the reserves (which pales in comparison to the human lives, of course).  But this year’s monarch population is one of the lowest in years according to scientists, at only 1.92 hectares.

This news video contains footage of Angangueo during the evacuation:
http://www.hechos.tv/estados/confirman-6-muertos-por-lluvias-en-michoacan/v/17714 (thanks to Journey North for the link)

Visiting Michoacan was a life-changing experience.  A few pictures from my trip can hardly capture the magic of the region, but it is the least I can do.  This is getting little to no media coverage in the US.  My heart is breaking for the amazing people who care for the monarch butterflies over the winter months and the losses they have suffered.  They are a resilient people, but I am keeping them in my prayers.

A hotel in Angangueo

Some children on their way to school in Angangueo

The view from the parking lot at El Rosario.  Supposedly the road is completely destroyed.

The path up the mountain at El Rosario.  A river of monarchs.

One of the restaurants run by the local people at El Rosario

A local Purepechuan women at El Rosario

The road, laid by hand by the local people, that is supposedly impassable now due to mudslides

I worry that homes like these are flooded or wiped out by mudslides

Oyamel forests like this one, at Sierra Chincua, have been illegally clearcut, resulting in the mudslides.

More information on the floods can be found here.

Monarch Enrichment Class

I spent the last few days working on the curriculum for my enrichment class.  This year each teacher will teach a 30 minute enrichment period on a topic they are passionate about.  I love the idea and am thrilled to delve deeper into the monarchs with my classes!  I will teach the class 4 times, to a different class each marking period.

I decided to focus a lot on the area of Mexico where the Monarchs migrate.  That means looking at the Aztecs and Mayans, modern-day Michoacan, and the monarch’s effects on the culture.  I’ve come up with a rough outline of the class, seen below.

View this document on Scribd

Meso-American Books for Kids?

I need your help!  This year I will be teaching an enrichment course based on monarch butterflies.  One of my focuses will be the Meso-American cultures in central Mexico, where the monarchs migrate. I am looking for great kid’s books(picture book to YA)about Aztecs, Mayans,Purepechua, etc.  In other words, I need fiction or non-fiction books about Meso-American cultures in Mexico.  So far I have found the following, but I need more!

• Aztec: The Goldsmith’s Daughter
• Tenochtitlan (Digging for the Past)
• Sungods and Sacrifice: Lost World of the Aztecs, Inca and Maya
• The Aztecs: Life in Tenochtitlan (Life in Ancient Civilizations)
• Graphic Myths and Legends: the Smoking Mountain: The Story of Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl: an Aztec Legend (Graphic Universe)
• Aztecs: The Fall of the Aztec Capital (DK Discoveries)
• Aztec, Inca, and Maya (DK Eyewitness Books)
• You Wouldn’t Want to Be an Aztec Sacrifice!
• You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Mayan Soothsayer!: Fortunes You’d Rather Not Tell
• You Wouldn’t Want to Be an Inca Mummy!: A One-Way Journey You’d Rather Not Make
• Ghost Wings
• Calavera Abecedario: A Day of the Dead Alphabet Book
• Day of the Dead
• Uncle Monarch And the Day of the Dead

 

I am interested in books that look at these cultures in the past and now.  I am especially looking for some chapter books/novels.  Any ideas?

Monarch Emergence and Document Camera

Wow! This past week both of my classes were witness to one of nature’s miracles- the emergence of a monarch butterfly from its chrysalis. I have never managed to have both classes view this miracle as monarch usually emerge early in the morning, before we arrive at school. This year, I remembered to move their cage into the air-conditioned (and dark) supply closet overnight. When I removed them in the morning, both chrysalids were dark. I assumed that they would both emerge that morning. Well, lucky us- one held off until after lunch!

What made this experience even better was the fact that I hooked up the document camera and placed it only a few inches from the chrysalis. Then, I hooked up the document camera to the TV. Well, watching the monarch emerge, close-up, on the TV was amazing! (And it allowed me to keep the kids away from the cage so they didn’t inadvertently knock into it). Well, you could hear a pin drop as we watched our two boys crawl out of their chrysalis, flip upside-down, and slowly begin pumping their wings.

I love my document camera!!!