With the seasons beginning to change, there are lots of animals that migrate to warmer areas. Monarchs are one of those animals; monarchs start to travel out to Mexico in September and October. They fly a two month trip to Central Mexico, flying 50 to 100 miles per day. Monarchs stay in Mexico until late March, and early April. A monarch’s life span only ranges from 5 to 8 weeks, except for the generation born at the end of summer. Those butterflies live up to 8 months.  

Monarchs start off as an egg then go to larvae. After the larva stage, monarchs form their chrysalis, where they stay for about 1 to 2 weeks. Monarchs become adults after the chrysalis stage. 

Ms. Jeanine Ging, sixth grade science and math teacher, has been releasing monarchs for many years. She loves dealing with monarchs and is always finding free time to go tag and release them. She tagged about 80 monarchs this year and is still working on entering the data for them. Her favorite thing about releasing monarchs is the chance that they have making it to Mexico over winter. Ms. Ging always releases monarchs with her classes outside in the courtyard. 

“We released about a dozen monarchs this year,” said Ms. Ging.