butterfly lecture tips

[Sheri Moreau]

Ron, you wrote to Jana:

>I have hand outs for both adults and children and tips on
>what makes a good program and how long. Will be more than 
>willing to snail-mail to anyone who preaches for the b'flies. 

I'd love to share tips with you and anyone else out there, with a view to
improving my presentation. My address is at the bottom of this message, if
you have handouts you can mail me. If anyone wants a copy of my handouts,
please send me your snail mail address privately! Here's what I do currently:

I teach one-hour classes to schools, garden clubs, retirement homes, etc. I
generally start out with a slide show, then gather the group into a circle
(on the floor for kids!) and pass around a lot of hands-on live and
preserved samples. At the end of my talk, we tag an adult Monarch, and take
it outside and release it. I have a 2 page butterfly gardening handout, and
some coloring sheets I leave with the teachers, and they usually buy a
milkweed plant and a couple of Monarch caterpillars at my reduced
educational rate.

(Slight digression here: Like Mary, I come dressed for the part of The
Butterfly Lady in a butterfly t-shirt, jacket, and/or vest. Hadn't thought
of a hat, however!!! I was teaching a group of Kindergarteners last fall,
and was wearing my Hungry Caterpillars t-shirt, when a fire alarm sounded.
It was their very first fire drill, and they were terrified (the front
office had neglected to notify the K. teachers that it was going to happen
so they could prepare the kids in advance, and the teachers were livid).
Many of the kids were crying and all were upset at the disruption and the
noise and of course they all thought their classroom was going to burn
up--bookbags and lunch boxes and all. I used my caterpillar t-shirt to
distract them--how many, which is scariest, etc.--and it was a BIG success!!)

One of the things on my To Do list is to put together an advance suggestion
sheet for teachers so they can prepare the class for my lectures.
Currently, I just verbally ask the teacher, when scheduling the class, to
have the kids brainstorm on the board or on a large tablet:

(1) What do we know about butterflies? (food, lifecycle, predators, etc.)
(2) What would we like to know about butterflies? (you'd be amazed!)

When I arrive, I hand the teacher a list of words I'd like to have written
on the board that I will use during the class (either the teacher, the
aide, or one of the children write these on the board while I'm setting
up). The words include: Lepidoptera, metamorphosis, instar, chrysalis,
larva, pupa, cocoon, migration, diapause, predator, camouflage, overwinter,
etc., and depend on the age group I'm speaking to.

At the end of my talk, we go over the vocabulary words and their
brainstormed lists of questions, and they answer their own questions with
info they've learned during the talk, or if I've missed something, I answer
it. Usually my talks are scheduled in the middle of a class unit on
metamorphosis. For follow-on projects, I suggest to the teacher that the
students invent an insect, drawing a picture or sculpting what it looks
like, and describing in writing the insect's lifecycle, including
incomplete or complete metamorphosis, what it eats, how it escapes from
predators, how it defends itself, how long it lives, how it survives bad
weather, and how it reproduces (depending on age of students). This project
can easily take up to a week to complete, and involves science, art and
math. If it's a local school, I GLADLY return FREE to the classroom to see
the results of their projects and admire their efforts!!! And also to
answer any new questions that may have arisen in the interim...

This is probably my most favorite part of my job!!

Smiles to all!  

Sheri Moreau
P.O. Box 7253
Carmel, CA 93921
Sheri Moreau
The Butterfly Conservancy, Carmel, California <www.butterflywings.com>
email: <sheri at butterflywings.com>