An outdoor space on the Montecito Union School District campus is transforming into a monarch butterfly waystation through a student-led project.
“They are citizen scientists,” said Heidi Craine, a second-grade teacher at MUS.
The one-school district at 385 San Ysidro Road started the project around March, and it’s expected to be finished in early June.
When completed, MUS will receive its waystation certification and a sign to display from the monarch waystation program via Monarch Watch.
MUS plans to get officially certified next year, Craine said.
A monarch waystation will provide resources necessary for monarchs to produce successive generations and sustain their annual migration, according to the Monarch Watch program.
Every fall, monarch butterflies migrate from America and Canada to central Mexico, where the nectar-feeding insects wait out the winter weather until conditions favor warmer to return in the spring, the Monarch Watch website stated.
The biggest reason that monarchs are disappearing is because of habitat loss, Craine said.
“A waystation is a way for them to stop and rest, and then continue on their journey,” she said. “It’s even more important right now to find new ways for them to come.”
A waystation habitat features milkweed, nectar and butterfly-friendly plants, as well as drainage to avoid root rot and provide good aeration of roots, plus it’s located in an area that receives several hours of sun each day, among other guidelines set forth by Monarch Watch.
The site also needs shelter to protect monarchs.
In addition, the school has a management plan to sustain the waystation on campus.
“These plants are going to need continual care,” said Sammy Simon, the coordinator for the nature lab, STEAM and special projects at MUS. “When that’s necessary, we’ll have kids out here, doing the hands-on gardening and maintenance, and upkeep of the space.
“We can always add more plants next year for the new group of second-graders to get that same experience.”
The waystation is in Montecito Union School’s nature lab, a 2½-acre site adjacent to school buildings. The nature lab has other student-driven projects around the outdoor space, including a sulcata tortoise habitat designed and built this year by third-graders of MUS.
The waystation is surrounding a treehouse that’s on the ground level. The site will feature sunflowers, manzanita trees, milkweed and all sorts of things that monarch butterflies and other pollinators enjoy.
MUS is incorporating butterflies into its curriculum. During classes, experts spoke to students on Zoom, and the young learners asked questions and participated in discussions.
“They had some probing questions,” Craine said.
Craine’s students learned an in-depth study of the monarch butterfly and researched several benefits of having a waystation at MUS and in the community at large, and they wrote persuasive letters to Superintendent Anthony Ranii.
“They were well researched,” Ranii said.
Students are involved in every stage of the project, including the design, landscaping and other hands-on activities that engage student learning and problem-solving.
“The kids are working the wheelbarrows and they’re working the shovels,” Ranii said.
“They came in and they took charge,” Craine added. “They’re proud.”
According to Monarch Watch, the South Coast is home to about 30 waystations and more than 33,000 sites across the United States as of mid-May.
“By creating and maintaining a monarch waystation, you are contributing to monarch conservation, an effort that will help assure the preservation of the species and the continuation of the spectacular monarch migration phenomenon,” Monarch Watch stated.
The waystation is funded and supported by the Montecito Union School Foundation, which was founded in 2018 as a result of the combination of the MUS PTA and the Montecito Education Foundation.
— Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at bholland@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.