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 About Insect Lore > Instruction Guides >Butterfly Pavilion School Kit |
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Your Butterfly Pavilion includes: Your Butterfly Pavilion School Kit Includes*: • A 2 foot tall Butterfly Pavilion habitat for your butterflies. • A certificate for 33 Painted Lady caterpillars (larvae). • Specially formulated, ready-to-use food for your caterpillars. • All the portion cups and lids you need to care for the caterpillars. • A pipette, a plastic spoon, and a small brush. • Instruction sheet. *NOTE: What you receive depends mostly on when you planned to have butterflies in your room. You've chosen one of these four options: 1) Item #133 — a pavilion with a certificate to order caterpillars (larvae) and food at a later date 2) Item #488 — a pavilion and live caterpillars with food to arrive together 3) Item #403 — a certificate to order just larvae and food later if you already have a habitat 4) Item # 123 — larvae and food to arrive together if you already have a habitat Getting Started No matter which Insect Lore butterfly kit you're using, make sure you and your students are ready to receive and care for the caterpillars. Depending on temperature, the metamorphosis can take up to 3 weeks and the butterflies may live an additional 2-4 weeks. Plan your lessons accordingly. Allow for any school breaks, holidays, or other interruptions that may impact the project. No matter the grade, your student will be very excited to care for their "own" butterflies. If you're using Items #133 or #403 (see above), read the entire certificate, fill it out, and mail it. (Please be sure to add a stamp.) After Insect Lore receives your certificate or order, your larvae are shipped from Insect Lore within 3 business days, and should arrive within 3 to 5 business days. When the Caterpillars Arrive At Insect Lore, incredibly tiny, green, Painted Lady butterfly eggs are constantly being nurtured and hatched into caterpillars (larvae). Whether you ordered for a later delivery using a certificate, or opted for an immediate supply to arrive with your Pavilion, the larvae will be in a cardboard box that says "Live Caterpillars! Open Immediately!" Inside are several interesting containers. Now the fun begins! How you handle the initial set up is a function of the age of your students, your teaching style, the time line you're facing, and how much help you may have available. The caterpillars are reasonably hardy but you do need to transfer them to their "personal" changing rooms as soon as possible after their arrival. You will need to place one caterpillar in each portion cup with some food on the bottom and a lid on the top. Before you begin, keep in mind that caterpillars are sensitive to bacteria and excessive moisture. Whoever is involved in the set up needs to have clean, dry hands and materials. Emphasize to the class that anyone who works in a lab will make sure this happens anyway. Prepare the cups for the larvae using the following procedure: 1. Keeping cleanliness and dryness in mind, find a large work space where you have some comfortable elbow room. 2. Separate the small, 1-oz cups and set them aside. 3. Open the large cup of food. With the spoon, scoop a generous half-spoonful of the nutrient into a 1-oz cup. 4. Using the bottom of another empty 1-oz cup as a press, force the nutrient firmly into the bottom of the cup. Try not to squish too much water out of the food. 5. Each cup needs a generous quarter-inch of nutrient in it, so adjust the amount you spoon into it accordingly. It's very important that the food be firmly wedged into the cup so that it can't be dislodged as the larva moves over it to feed or if the cup is dropped. Do this to all of the 1-oz cups. You'll have plenty of food. 6. Open the cup of larvae (Note: Placing the cup of larvae in a refrigerator beforehand for about 20 minutes slows them considerably). Avoid tearing the paper liner as you remove the lid. Keep the small brush dry and use it to gently pick up one larva and transfer it to a 1-oz cup. Sometimes it"s easier to move the larvae if you trim the tip of the brush slightly. They"re small but they can move faster than you expect! Replace the lid on the larger cup to keep the other larvae inside. After you've placed a larva inside the 1-oz cup, snap a small lid in place. Repeat this until you've placed one larva in each of the small cups. Each cup has plenty of air for the larva so you don't need to punch holes in it. Also, it's important that the cups remain undisturbed as the caterpillars grow and molt. The students should be able to see inside and watch what's happening, but jostling the cup (like having a student take it home) isn't a great idea. The cups need to be as undisturbed as possible. There will be more larvae than 1-oz cups. This helps you and the students deal with the inevitable losses that may occur naturally (see below). If there's about a half-inch of food on the bottom and the paper liner is intact, as many as 5 caterpillars can remain in the large, 8-oz containers. Caring for the Caterpillars It's very important that the cups with caterpillars stay out of direct sunlight and remain upright and capped! Direct sunlight warms the interior of the cup, causing water to condense inside. This excess water can cause the caterpillars to sicken and die. Keep the cups vertical, too. An inverted or tilted cup may dislodge the food supply or worse, prevent the formation of a chrysalis. The lid on each cup keeps the nutrient clean and the larva inside. The larvae don't need anything else other than the food you pushed inside the cups. Don't be alarmed if you see little or no movement in a cup at first. There's always an adjustment period for the caterpillar. You can help by placing the cups in a dark place like a closed box. Besides, the larvae don't move much when they're molting and that happens several times. Within a few days, a little bit of spun silk is a good sign that they're healthy. So, watch as they eat, spin silk, and grow to many times their original size! "What's a Teacher to Do ?!" You might consider the following as suitable topics for the students as you wait for the eating machines to become butterflies. • Get on the web! Try topics like butterfly, Painted Lady, metamorphosis, or other related "butterfly" words on any search engine and expect more connections than you thought possible! Insectlore.com provides butterfly information as well in our "insectlorepedia" section. • Where there is birth and life, there is also death. You may lose a few larvae and/or butterflies to natural causes but it may be a real loss to the students who "own" them. Insect Lore always sends plenty of extras and guarantees that 66% of your larvae will become butterflies. If a loss is discovered some morning, let it lead to some interesting class discussions about environmental changes, food chains, living vs. nonliving, predator vs. prey, "germs," life cycles, or the complexity of life support in general. • The question "How do they know to hang with their heads downward?" can lead to an in-depth study of tropisms, instincts, and inherited traits. • Another question you'll hear is "What's in the food?" Essentially, it's a careful blend of natural ingredients. Mostly, it's malva leaves, water, and supplements. But, you could ask the students, "how do they eat in the wild?" And, "How does a butterfly eat compared to a caterpillar?" • The silk fibers in the cups are very important to the caterpillars. They come from the caterpillar"s mouth and are used to climb from place to place. The students are certain that they"re sticky, but they"re not. What other insects use silk? How do they make it? How do the caterpillars spread it all over? It"s time for the students to do a little digging! • Develop a chronology of growth. Document the details: size, new markings, behavior changes, etc. Daily illustrations can become a histogram and track changes over time. Have a "Butterfly Symposium" where your young entomologists can share their discoveries with each other. • There's always a lesson in the truly amazing characteristics of insects and the vital roles they have in the human experience (pollination, food, diseases, decomposition, art, etc.). No doubt you'll include the fact that there are far more insects than humans on Earth, too. Setting Up the Butterfly Pavilion Habitat The easiest part of this wonderfully easy experience is setting up the Butterfly Pavilion habitat. Simply pop open the habitat and set it on a flat surface, or hang it at eye-level for the students. Avoid hanging the habitat near or under air conditioning vents, or in direct sunlight. You don't want drafts and hot spots. Fascinating and Fantastic Changes ! The warmer the room, the faster the change occurs. At temperatures between 68 and 75 degrees F, a Painted Lady caterpillar will need 7 to 10 days to eat its way into becoming a chrysalid. It hangs out the "Don't bother me. I'm eating!" sign and does its best to molt a few times and reduce the food supply to "frass" (tiny green balls of waste). Then it climbs along the silk threads to the top of the cup and hangs down "head first" from the lid. It's crucial that it's not disturbed during the initial part of this 7 to 10-day phase of life. What you will see is a caterpillar hanging in a J-shape by its tail that's attached to the underside of the lid. It looks very uncomfortable but it isn't! This is also the most vulnerable stage of the caterpillar's life so far. The larva has no protection until the final molt and the emergence of the chrysalis covering. Even then, the only means of protecting itself from predators is to shake when disturbed. Although this seems to be a time of resting, it's really a time of rapid and astounding change. Within the chrysalis, the body parts of the caterpillar are undergoing remarkable transformations that will become the parts of a beautiful butterfly. Transferring the Chrysalides to the Butterfly Pavilion While the caterpillar hangs upside down, its fuzzy body covering is shed as the chrysalis forms. You'll know the process is complete when the J-shape has disappeared completely and the fuzz is gone. The fuzz usually ends up dropping off but sometimes it's still attached by a tiny fiber. The length of time to change from caterpillar to chrysalis depends largely on the surrounding temperature. So, within a day or two of finding one chrysalis, you'll see lots more. They"ll all seem to have transformed at once! Wait a day to let your chrysalides harden before moving them. After the chrysalides have formed and hardened, you can put them into the Butterfly Pavilion habitat. Unzip the Pavilion and then carefully open a 1-oz cup. Slowly lift each lid. Silk fibers may be tugging on the golden chrysalis so use the brush (or a cotton swab) to free the chrysalis from the cup – but not from the lid. Pull away any silk stuck to the chrysalides. Silk may damage the emerging butterflies. Lean the lids against the netting inside the Pavilion. Place the lids around the edge of the floor about an inch from each other. The chrysalides will remain in this stage of development for approximately 7 to 10 days before becoming butterflies. NOTE: Most of the chrysalides will be attached to the lid of the cups and can be easily transferred to the Pavilion. In some cases, however, they will have fallen into the cup. If any have become detached from the lids, gently lay them on a paper towel on the floor of the Pavilion . Chances are very good that they'll emerge as healthy butterflies, too. The Birth of a Butterfly Depending on the warmth of the room, the butterflies will begin to emerge in about 7 to 10 days. The excitement level is very high when this happens. You'll have an idea as to the timing of this event by looking at the chrysalids. The darker the chrysalis, the closer it is to the big moment. This is truly an extraordinary process! After the butterfly emerges, it will rest in a vertical position and force blood under pressure into the veins of its wings to expand them to full size. About two hours after emergence, the wings will be full-sized and hardened, and the butterfly will be able to fly. During this wing stretching process, you may see a red liquid which looks like blood coming from the tail of the butterfly. This is called meconium, and it's merely leftover wing pigments and unneeded tissues from the butterfly's formation. However, it leaves spots of bright red color. You'll want to talk to the students about it because sometimes it looks very "bloody" and messy and the students will need to expect it. It's natural and normal and shows that the butterfly is in excellent health! You can reach into the Pavilion and remove the lids and the remains of the chrysalids attached to them. Any meconium stains are best left alone until the habitat is empty and you're putting it away for the year. Then you can gently wash the Pavilion in warm water. Let it dry completely before storing it. Feeding, Observing, and Releasing Feeding the butterflies is easy, fun, and very interesting. Simply place some fresh flowers (such as carnations or mums) on the bottom of the Pavilion. You'll want to be certain that the flowers haven't been sprayed with pesticides or insect repellants. Mix three teaspoons of sugar into a cup of water and stir. Keep this solution refrigerated. Use the pipette to sprinkle the mixture directly onto the flowers every day, or loosely wad up facial tissue into 2-inch balls and wet them with the sugar water. Set the wads on a paper plate on the floor of the Pavilion. Freshly-cut orange pieces are a butterfly favorite, too. It's fascinating to observe a butterfly as it feeds. It unfurls its proboscis, drinks the sugar water or orange juice, and then rolls it back up. You can safely pick up a butterfly by gently grasping the wings when they're closed. The students can see the body parts close up with a hand lens. The scales that color the wings will leave dusty marks on your fingers but the butterfly will be unharmed. If you have one, a microscope on low power reveals incredible designs on pieces of wings left behind on the floor of the Pavilion, too. After several days of observing the butterflies (the adult life-span is approximately 2-4 weeks), and if weather conditions permit, release them into the environment. For 40 years, Painted Lady butterflies from Insect Lore have educated and delighted children, their teachers and their parents. They're clean, beautiful successful pollinators of plants. If you live anywhere in the United States, you can safely release them if daytime temperatures are above 55 degrees F. Your butterflies will often be seen for several days in the vicinity of their release, so keep your eyes peeled! |
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