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Writer's pictureSusan Oehlertz

The Circle of Life


Wow! I recently had the pleasure of being a part of an EPIC classroom, witnessing EPIC students, and working with an EPIC teacher - 3rd Grade Science Teacher - Terri Samuelson.

This Fall, Mrs. Samuelson partnered with Lynne Campbell, a science / STEM consultant with PLAEA and her monarch conservation outreach for the Iowa Monarch Conservation Consortium. Mrs. Samuelson's class participated in a Monarch Butterfly Pilot Program.

Since the monarch population has declined over the years due to habitat loss, pesticides, etc., Mrs. Samuelson wanted her class to do some active research to learn more.

The Monarch Butterfly Pilot Program turned Mrs. Samuelson's room into an EPIC Classroom. Every morning, students couldn't wait to rush into her room to see what had happened from the night before. This truly was amazing to witness. The pure joy and excitement, let alone the collaborative discussions that took place each morning when students gathered to observe the previous night's progression, made for EPIC students.

The Circle of Life...

The class received butterfly eggs on a milkweed leaf that hatched the following day. These eggs were so tiny! Students used magnifying glasses to see their little white bodies and black heads. Each student was given a caterpillar to care for as they watched it develop. Students took pictures during each stage of the butterfly life cycle with the camera on their Chromebooks to use in their final performance task - Create a WeVideo with audio reflection on what they saw and learned through the Butterfly Life Cycle.

Capitalizing on technology, and not wanting to "miss a thing", we used an iPevo camera to capture video throughout the day, night and weekends. We were lucky enough to capture the developing pupa and emerging butterfly on video. How Exciting to See!!! (We then later took the hours and hours of captured video and sped it up to show these stages happening rapidly for students to put in their videos).

Remember my EPIC teacher reference! Mrs. Samuelson regularly treaded through ditches at night and on weekends gathering milkweed for the growing caterpillars to dine on every few days. This experience brought some authentic consequences the students witnessed. Some caterpillars started to die with different batches of milkweed. Unfortunately, Mrs. Samuelson didn't know that some milkweed she gathered had been tainted with chemicals. You can just imagine the talking points and conversations that were taking place inside the classroom now, which led to some amazing cross curricular math problems later on where students used the program Explain Everything to explain their thinking.

Once the butterflies emerged, students tagged their butterflies before they released them. Since our climate is too cold for them to survive, they migrate to Mexico for the winter. This website shows the monarch migration. These monarchs will return in the spring again to lay eggs. Maybe we will see one of them again!

This was an absolutely unforgettable experience for me, Mrs. Samuelson, and our 3rd grade students. This experience is something none of us will ever forget! These types of opportunities and experiences is what teaching and learning is all about. You can't make this type of impact on students' learning without innovative teachers like Mrs. Samuelson and innovative technology!

Take a look at an example of one of our student's final performance tasks. The Butter Fly Life Cycle through the lens of a 3rd grader.


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