Monarch Butterflies

Week 1:
Pique their interest...I used RC morning letter to begin our unit.  can't wait to see their answers.

They were into it; they had great discussions amongst themselves about what it could be:

We worked to solve the difference in Monarch population from 5 years ago and now: 

300,000,000-57,000,000.  Once we knew the answer (wow, were they surprised), they worked in partnerships to think of why that might have happened:

So the predictions were not too far off in terms of their background knowledge.  Most had to do with habitat destruction or weather.  These actually do impact their population, but not as much as RoundUp.  Our class later learned that large commercial farms that grow genetically modified (GMO) corn and soy crop dust with RoundUp.  The RoundUp kills the milkweed.  No place for females to lay eggs, and no way for monarch pupa to survive.

Weeks 2 & 3:

Becoming experts about monarchs and milkweed.

This week we learned about the life cycle and body parts of monarchs and milkweed.  Students diagrammed the adult and larva, and the adult milkweed plant.  We also discussed the life cycles of both.  We used A Monarch Butterflies Life by John Himmelman, Monarchs and Milkweed by Helen Frost and Monarch Butterfly by Gail Gibbons as our anchor texts.

 Next we learned about photosynthesis.  Brainpop had some great resources.  We also planted milkweed, corn, soy, GMO corn and GMO soy for future experiments early in the 2nd week.

Weeks 4 & 5:
Migration & Photosynthesis
  Students learned about monarch migration and how some travel over 3,000 miles!  They were most surprised about the super generation; the great-grandchildren of the first migration.  They travel from Canada to Mexico to overwinter.  We read The Seeds of the Milkweed by the Second grade Students of East End Elementary.  As a formative assessment students created a collage in the same art style and wrote about connections they've made between monarchs and milkweed.

 After viewing a few videos on Photosynthesis (Brainpop) and Genetically Modified plants (GMO videos on youtube), we wrote lab reports of our RoundUp observations.  Following the structure of  Lucy Caulkins 2nd grade lab reports, I framed our question around what we think will happen to our variety of GMO and non-GMO plants when sprayed with RoundUp.  Students wrote hypothesis, materials & procedures, results, and conclusions.
Our results were not what we expected!

Our results showed that ALL the plants died from the RoundUp, even the GMO ones.  We emailed the science lab that we purchased the seeds from and they had no response.  Our guess is that the seeds really weren't GMO.  We researched online and even emailed Monsanto! Our study showed that GMO plants are RoundUp tolerant; Monsanto makes both products so it wouldn't make sense if the plants died.

Week 6 & 7
Advocates & Summative Assessment
This week we learned about other children that are advocates.   Students did a jigsaw within their small groups.  Each child read about a different advocate and summarized to their group.  Al students learned about 4 different ways to advocate for your cause.

Then students wrote ideas of how they would like to help the monarchs.  After grouping similar ideas together, students planned and implemented their ideas.  The four groups were: letter writing, planting a nectar resource in our class plots, creating an information webpage (see the student page of this blog), and hosting a bake sale/donating proceeds to Monarchwatch.org.

Students created sales posters & advertisements.  They also created/packaged the baked goods.

Students explained why they were hosting the bake sale and what the money was being used for.

All of our class was able to sell, not just the bake sale group.  After 3 rotations, we sold out!