Lesson takes flight for McKinley pupils

The butterflies are free at McKinley Elementary School.
Thirty-five butterflies raised by Terri Carlin’s third-graders were released Thursday at Don Hillbrant’s home, 302 S. Colborn St. The “painted ladies” were freed from their containers to flutter on the flower-filled lawn.
Student Royce Smith thinks the whole caterpillar-to-chrysalis-to-butterfly thing is pretty cool.
And he really likes the way the chrysalis shakes itself to ward off enemies.
He learned all about it, including the proper names for the process, in Carlin’s classroom.
The project was Carlin’s way of giving her students hands-on experience about the life cycle of butterflies. It’s unlikely taking the same information from a textbook would have made as great an impression, or resulted in the youngsters assimilating it as thoroughly.
Carlin ordered clear plastic cups holding butterfly larva and the students watched them closely each day as caterpillars developed. They marveled when they climbed the sides of the cups and attached themselves to lids, and built their cocoons.
“They hung upside down like little J’s,” said Alex Sager.
Sierra Petty noted that the caterpillars were “one to two centimeters long.”
(That’s less than an inch for the metric-challenged.)
“We named each one,” Petty added.
Once the chrysales, or cocoons, were well-formed, they were placed in butterfly pavilions, containers made of plastic net a little smaller than a five-gallon bucket.
Students learned that caterpillar-containing chrysales are individual enough that when they feel threatened, they start to shake, which is the “cool shake” that impressed Smith.
Carlin has used live butterflies in classroom instruction before, but this was the first time for so many and for them to develop with daily attention from her young students. After about 10 days the chrysales split open and butterflies emerged, to the delight of the roomful of nine-year-olds.
“Allie Utley was our scout,” Carlin said. “She kept watch.” Whatever other lessons were scheduled for the day fell aside when she yelled, “One’s coming out!”
Shane Winner wants the world to know that his butterfly was the first born.
Initially out of the chrysales, “their wings were wet and they couldn’t fly,” Jacob Fudge observed. “But, in about 10 minutes they were flying all over.”
On Thursday, the marvelous lesson took flight.
Carlin has many bright kids among the 18 she teaches. After turning the butterflies loose in the morning, they were treated to pizza for doing well on state assessments.