More

than 60 monarch butterflies took flight from

Huddleston Elementary School in Peachtree City

Thursday, beginning their annual migration to the

mountaintop forests of Mexico.

Attached

to their paper wings were messages in Spanish and

English to the school children in Mexico, who

will provide them a safe harbor until spring,

when they will wing their way back.

" Mi nombre es Rachel

Crosby. My name is Rachel Crosby. Soy ocho

anos . I am 8 years old. Estay en el tres

grado . I'm in third grade. Me gusta las

mariposas monarcas . I like the monarch

butterflies. Salvemos las Mariposas Monarcas!

Let's keep the monarch butterflies alive! Las

mariposas monarcas son muy bellas . The

monarch butterflies are very beautiful. Gracia .

Thank You, Rachel Crosby."

This

is the third year students in Lynda Fields' and

Sandra Thomas' third and fourth grade enrichment

classes have joined 80,000 students across North

America to focus attention on one of nature's

most beautiful and endangered natural phenomena.

The colorful paper insects created by the

Huddleston students will duplicate the journey

made by the real monarchs, who winter by the

millions in the forests' fir tree trunks and

boughs outside Mexico City.

The

project, called "Journey North - Symbolic

Monarch Migration," was gleaned from the

Internet by Thomas. The two collaborated to

create a unit on butterflies that includes work

in the school's habitat. A portion of the habitat

is planted with the type of flora that attract

butterflies such as bronze fennel, dill and

milkweed. "The butterflies come to feed in

the garden and then find the milkweed,"

Fields said, noting that milkweed serves as a

host plant.

The

butterflies from Huddleston will arrive this week

at the staging area at the University of

Minnesota, where they will be mixed to simulate

the way monarchs blend together on their journey.

The approximate date of arrival in Mexico is Nov.

2, in time for Dia de los Muertos, a

commemoration of the spirits of the dead.

During

the winter, the symbolic butterflies will hang on

the classroom walls of schools in the migration

area. In March, butterflies created by the

Mexican school children will head north to their

starting point.

Butterflies

bearing messages and e-mail addresses have led to

establishing some pen-pal relationships,

according to Fields.

Not

only do the children learn about the butterflies,

which are now running the risk of extinction due

to the gradual elimination of the special fir

trees they seek, but about Mexico as well.

"In third grade, we study about the

butterflies. In fourth grade, students learn

about the geography and culture of Mexico,"

Fields explained.

For

information about the monarch program, click onto

its website at https://www.learner.org/jnorth .

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