Kindergartners in Sioux City help tag and release monarch butterflies
Kindergartners at Nodland Elementary School in Sioux City tagged and released butterflies on Monday September 30.
Jenny Stephens, a kindergartner teacher at the school, said the class teamed up with Iowa State University Extension and the Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center for the event.
Stephens said the kindergartners have been watching the life cycle of the butterflies. She said they’ve watched them go from egg, to caterpillar, to chrysalis, to butterfly.
“The students were so excited. Their curious minds just went crazy. They would come in and look at it, and they would point out to us ‘Hey, we think it’s gonna turn into a chrysalis’. And we would get the caterpillar, and put it under the projector, and watch it turn into a chrysalis,” said Jenny Stephens, kindergarten teacher at Nodland Elementary School.
Staffers at the Dorothy Pecaut Nature Center said tagging monarch butterflies is for tracking purposes, in order to better understand their migration.