SchoolsEstela RomeroFebruary 06, 2021

Our little children getting acquainted to Monarchs and Nature!

SchoolsEstela RomeroFebruary 06, 2021

THE VISIT

OUR LITTLE CHILDREN GETTING ACQUAINTED TO MONARCHS!

The visit today, Friday, February 5, has been somewhat special. A pre-school teacher, Enedelia, from “La Salud” community, --a little village one passes by just before reaching “El Rosario” Sanctuary--, asked whether her group of little children attending classes at her home could be introduced to Monarch’s life cycle and to a basic concept of nature, which the Symbolic Migration attended. It was a surprise to hear that in this group, very young girls, ages 16 to 18, just become mothers who had just received their last Ambassador Monarchs at their middle and high school facilities last season and the season before, would attend the visit too. A grandma deciding to attend the presentation was very especially enthusiastic. Once there with them, at the welcoming greetings, these four young mothers expressed themselves taking turns at commenting: “While we were at school, the arrival of our Ambassador butterflies to us and the information on nature made us change the view of the natural surrounding we are living in here in our area; our view to nature changed forever; we want our little children to get educated in a different way, as close as possible to the reality we have out here; our whole life depends on nature, and that is something former generations simply took for granted. We and our children might live these consequences”. Such witnessing of young generations now having grown up as children receiving their conservation lessons in their classrooms back then, show that seeds spread years ago, have contributed to changing these young generation’s view to their own natural surrounding and its conservation, for the sake of Monarchs and our own sake as locals too. On we went with our topic: Estela approached the lesson first by letting the small group of elementary school children “that Monarchs come to us because overwintering in our Oyamel forests, allows them to get a unique microclimate here; that the 4- 5 generations of the year are born in the North (Canada and US), and that those overwintering up in front of us now, are the great-great-grandchildren of the ones leaving us at the beginning of last spring in March; that the process from egg to adult Monarch is simply fantastic, since a little caterpillar, when emerging from being a tiny egg, can eat and eat and eat and soon reach the size of a school bus, if it were compared with a just born baby eating without stopping!”. So much fun all this was for them to listen, but at the same time facts like our Oyamel forests being so unique and delicate and at some risk up to a certain extent now… --grandma attending was so shocked to hear that at seeing the satellite map pointing to this how unique the Oyamel forests are in the world… The visit resulted in a combination of bringing in different very important facts adjusted to a simplicity so that no matter what the age of our attendees, all of us felt speaking of and being part of the same important topic of great interest for our life right now and into the future. Little children received their Ambassador butterflies for the fist time, for a second time and young Mothers loved to feel themselves students again on one side, but responsible on the other side of educating new little human beings whose future shall be ensured in the way Monarch butterflies are now signing us to go: Nature Conservation.

***To our northern friends keeping track of the sequence number of their Symbolic Monarchs delivered: While Estela being distracted unloading the car with the didactic material, some of the children crept to the box of Symbolic Monarchs, took a handful out of the folder and put them back at hearing Estela’s steps coming. The sequence number was moved and Estela never realized it while delivering hand to hand, sure that all would be intact. All this grandma María Luisa there witnessed and told Estela next day, who went back for clarification. ***Please find your Ambassador Monarchs 265-271 and 283-289 in this visit, and missing Ambassadors 272-282 in the coming visit in the blog; this latter has been the sequence numbers moved and the coming visit in the blog will reflect it. I beg you all to apologize my distraction and late reaction, hopeful this will not represent a major inconvenience to you. Estela Romero. ***At realizing that little girl Estrellita at the group photo, did not lift her Ambassador Monarch on time, we went back to her and got the photo of her and her Ambassador Monarch she did not show correctly the day of the visit with her group. Her grand-ma was really kind and understood how hightly important it was not to miss a single Ambassador in the group photo!.