Veterans Elementary children get up close with nature
By B.C. Manion
Veterans Elementary is a school where “Caterpillar Crossing” signs are used to prevent the creeping crawlers from being crushed by kids and adults.
It’s also a place where children can get a firsthand look at the life cycle of butterflies – watching how they transform from a caterpillar to a chrysalis to a creature with wings.
“You should have seen it when the caterpillars were out,” said Lorilie Jani, who takes care of the school’s butterfly garden. “At the end of October, we saw our caterpillars starting to show up, and by the first week in November we were on caterpillar patrol, as they were everywhere,” said Jani, who is the school’s plant manager.
The school’s morning news programs alerted everyone on campus to keep an eye out for the caterpillars to keep from crushing them, Jani said.
The children were excited about saving the caterpillars. They would tell Jani: “There’s two over there. There’s one here. Oh, that one got squished.”
The garden’s caretaker also began cutting branches of milkweed that were loaded with caterpillars and putting them in a butterfly hatchery that she built.
Jani had so many caterpillars it was hard to keep them fed.
She pointed to stalks in the garden: “This is what’s left of our milkweed. Look how they demolished it,” said Jani, who appreciates the kindness of teachers who brought in milkweed from home to replenish her supply.
The butterfly hatchery also served as protection for the caterpillars from predators. The lid of the wooden box is covered with green, pod-like chrysalides awaiting their transformation into butterflies.
Deana Wolkov, a teaching intern, said it’s great to have a classroom next door to the butterfly garden.
The kindergartners she teaches “are very interested to see what’s happening,” she said. The class has been learning about butterflies and having the 12- by-300 foot garden next door provides an excellent resource for teaching, she said.
“For them to actually see it and seeing the transformation makes a big difference in their learning,” she said. “There’s nothing like seeing it.”
Jani gets tremendous satisfaction from helping children learn and by helping to bring a bit of beauty to the school campus.
She said she and helpers – including children and adults – created the garden from seeds. The butterfly garden came about after devastating freezes took out the native plants that were planted on campus when the school opened in 2008.
Jani credits Deb Hamilton, Bob Stalnaker and Bill Wampler, three master gardener volunteers, for being enormously helpful in creating the butterfly garden.
The master gardeners made podcasts to teach the youngsters about planting the seeds and also pitched in with the planting.
Each classroom was given 22 starter cups and seeds, Jani said.
Plants in the garden include purple coneflowers, flax, Johnny-jump-ups, salvia, cosmos, morning glory, snow in summer, foxglove, maiden pink, salvia, tropical milkweed, Shasta daily and cardinal pipevine. All of the plants were grown from seed.
At its peak, the garden was beautiful, Jani said.
“It brought more butterflies than ever,” Jani said.
All of the seeds and supplies used for the garden were paid for from funds raised through recycling newspaper and cardboard.
While pleased with the garden’s progress, Jani has already set her sights on making some improvements next year.
For one thing, she plans to change the location of the greenhouse next year – to keep it out of the path of soccer balls.
She’s also planning to build a bigger butterfly hatchery.
