14 Oct ENGAGING DISTANCE LEARNING – SUZANNE EL-HAJ

I had the privilege of working with Antonio Ruvalcaba from Dinosaur National Monument. Our internships programs started around the same time and we worked on very similar projects at each park regarding monarch conservation. Last week we completed our outreach event! We both collaborated on a learning program about monarchs and milkweed. To get this done we met virtually multiple times throughout the month. With the help of the Grand Canyon Distance Learning program, we secured a meeting with a bilingual school called Puente De Hozho located in Flagstaff. At this school we presented our learning program virtually to two third grade classes which were about 60 students in total! Our presentation focused on connecting students to monarch biology, conservation, and exploring how monarch migration is interwoven with Latin cultures.

We taught the students about monarch biology, lifecycle, milkweed importance, migration, and conservation. We connected the monarch migration to the Dia De Los Muertos celebration in Mexico City, where all the monarchs migrate when going South. Also, half of our presentation was in Spanish which was so important for the kids to get involved!

Both Antonio and I encouraged the children to pursue their higher education dreams so they can have opportunities like us. All in all the kids were so excited and had many great questions for us. I am so grateful that we had the opportunity to share the importance of monarch butterfly conservation with this local school.