Live Monarch Foundation Educator Award Program

Looking for a Classroom Project? Here's a Good One.

 The Live Monarch Foundation Educator Outreach Program provides funding for K–12 teachers to enroll in a national campaign to bring monarch butterflies into the classroom. The program provides information and materials for people to strengthen the monarch’s 3,000 mile migratory route and replace lost habitat within North America by creating self-sustaining butterfly gardens and refuges.

You'll need a place to grow milkweed plants—as few or as many as you want—the primary food of the monarch butterfly and the place where it lays its eggs. Young caterpillars even spend their first few days eating their milkweed habitat, until they transform into chrysalises and emerge as butterflies.

The rest you can receive for free (postage required) by applying online for a teachers' package that contains basic supplies to begin a monarch project. The package includes milkweed seeds, but for a little money you can buy small milkweed plants from the Foundation and shorten your project cycle by 45 days.

The Web site has project ideas and other resources, including background information on the monarch and updates on the annual migration. Go to www.livemonarch.org/. Deadline: rolling.