TOLEDO, Ohio — Toledo Public Schools received national recognition for their amazing research for monarch butterflies.
Students at Hawkins STEMM Academy have spent three years assisting monarch butterflies with their migration.
And now, the school has been certified as a WILD School Site where their research will be used by science experts.
It's all a national effort to protect the hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies that migrate south through the U.S. each fall season.
In fact, as of July 30, there have been 48,346 Monarch way station habitats registered with Monarch Watch.
"So, this is great news for TPS, its great news for Hawkins STEMM. This is powerful for our students," said Cynthia Madanski, the instructional coach at Hawkins. "It's so much more than just a beautiful, pretty garden that our students plated. This is a learning lab for our students, so they are collecting community science data that gets shared with scientist."
The young researchers at Hawkins have created a way station (stopping point.)
To sustain the butterflies, a way station has to have at least six hours of sun exposure and proper maintenance.
The ODNR Division of Wildlife has deemed the way station a certified WILD school site. This means it is considered an extension of the national Project WILD Program.
"We are uploading data that students are collecting about any monarch eggs, larva chrysalis, adult butterflies that they see, and they share that with the University of Minnesota. So that research is going into publications to help those scientists learn more about how climate change is affecting the migration," said Madanski.
Hawkins STEMM Academy is the 211th WILD School Site in Ohio, the sixth in Lucas County and the first for TPS.
For more information about WILD School Sites, click HERE.
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