Equation Freak: And now for something completely different

Wednesday, April 01, 2015

And now for something completely different - Monarch Butterfly Habitats

I love gardening and getting into the garden during the summer is something I look forward to all year. Flowers are my passion and my hubby plants a large vegetable garden for us. I spend hours a week in my garden working in it and enjoying my flowers. Everyday when I walk into school, I hate looking at the front of our building because it doesn't have flowers anywhere. It's just plain out boring. There actually use to be beautiful flowers in front but someone pulled them all out. UGH! So to remedy this situation, Donna, a science teacher at my building and I are starting a gardening club with the kids. What fun! While I was trying to decide what we should plant, I ran across interesting pins on Pinterest explaining how to plant butterfly gardens, specifically Monarch Butterfly gardens. I've always wanted to plant a butterfly garden and when I read that Monarch Butterflies are endangered I knew I needed to plant one. Well actually, I will be planting two, one at school and one at home. (Shhh, don't tell my husband, he doesn't know yet that he is going to be building it for me. I just plant he does the rest. LOL ) The nice weather cannot get here soon enough for me.

Here is some information I read on the National Wildlife Federation site:

The Monarch Butterfly has declined 90% in the last twenty years.
One-third of the summer habitat has been destroyed mostly in the Midwest. (That's my area.)
Milkweed is the only plant that the Monarch caterpillars use and it has declined because of the use of pesticides.

I feel I can do a small part to help these beautiful creatures. So I've decided to share our journey creating the garden with all of you. I will be able to find math to talk about during this project and hopefully lots of awesome pictures. I'll keep you posted.

Check out my pinterest board on Monarch Butterflies.