Thursday, September 23, 2010

The last most beautiful thing.

by erratic

So what's the last beautiful thing that you experienced? Here's mine:

I've been learning about monarch butterflies this year, actually took a class on them. They are fascinating and beautiful beings, and my next ambition is to start up a classroom-based monarch program, where kids get to watch monarchs go from egg through 6 caterpillar instars, to chrysalis, watch the butterfly break out, and set it free. The Monarch Teacher Network is a great resource for putting together a program, all I need to do is queue up a grant and partner with a school. Doable. But I am a lazy soul.

Almost too lazy to bother to describe all the things that make Monarch Butterflies so awesome. The 2nd longest insect migration in the world (they were recently preempted by a dragonfly in the Indian Ocean). All monarchs east of the Rockies overwinter in one small area close to Mexico City, which means that in September, the great-grandchildren of the butterflies that flew north in the spring, fly more than a thousand miles, back to a place they've never known. http://en.wikipedia.org/..., for the curious.



continued at Daily Kos....