Second graders at Leicester Elementary School are learning about science, geography, and global citizenship through a project inspired by the monarch butterfly’s amazing migration.

As part of the Symbolic Monarch Migration project, students in Sarah Gillespie’s class made life-size paper monarch butterflies and wrote personal messages to children who live near the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico. Millions of monarch butterflies spend the winter there.

The project builds on classroom lessons about the butterfly life cycle and how monarchs travel thousands of miles across generations. Students also learned about geography, language, and other cultures by reading messages in both English and Spanish.

“One of our standards is the lifecycle of butterflies,” Ms. Gillespie said. “So this lesson connects the lifecycle of butterflies, science, and global citizenship. It helps the kids realize that they're part of a big world.”

In the spring, monarch butterflies begin traveling north again. Around the same time, students at Leicester Elementary will receive messages from children in Mexico. This exchange completes the students’ symbolic migration and helps them see how people in different countries can connect with one another.

“One of the cool things about this project is that we get to send it to people that we don't even know,” said Mariana, a second grade student. “It's really cool to send something to a Mexican kid that doesn't even really know us. And I think that we need to appreciate that."