The Evergreens Team Introduction
We are The Evergreens, a team consisting of four Penn State Berks students working together to inform the young of the importance of butterflies. The Evergreens team members include (left to right): Kenisha Brown, Kevin Harris, Chloe Remaly, and Samantha Stehn. Kenisha is a first year student majoring in Communication Arts & Sciences, Kevin is a first year student majoring in journalism, Chloe is a first year student majoring in early childhood education, and Samantha is a first year student majoring in public policy. Together The Evergreens are working to spread awareness about the importance of the world’s butterfly population.
Spreading Wings of Knowledge
For our service project, we assisted in putting together The Very Hungry Caterpillar event at Glenside Elementary School. Our team created crafts, games, read a book, and played a movie to inform the younger students on the lifecycle of a butterfly and emphasize their importance to our environment. We brought the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle to life for the younger kids. Kenisha and Kevin provided an audio visual presentation to the children on the lifecycle of a butterfly and the journy that the Very Hungry Caterpillar experienced. Chloe read aloud the book to the students and answered questions on how a caterpillar is capable of growing. Samantha face painted on the kids images of the caterpillar and butterfly that were featured in the book and presentation. Together our team decorated Glenside Elementary School’s hallways so that the children could quite literally walk through the lifecycle of a caterpillar. By the end of the event, Glenside Elementary’s students had new well earned knowledge on the biological-clock of a caterpillar. The Evergreens spread the student’s wings by relating a fiction picture book to their everyday lives. With all of the decorations, crafts, and games made by our team being recycled by the school for the repetition of the same event in upcoming years, The Evergreens are content in our contribution to the passing down of butterfly and caterpillar awareness to future pupils.
Click the picture above to watch our service video!
Save The Butterflies
For our research portion of the EACAP project, we looked into the decline of butterflies across the world with a focus on monarchs. In the past 20 years the monarch butterfly population has dropped over 80% nationwide. Experts approximate that in the upcoming 20 years there is a 60% chance of of monarchs migration collapsing completely. However, it is not only monarchs that we are worried about; 450 different species of butterflies are rapidly declinig across the world. These beautiful creatures are threatened by landscaping, industrialization, pesticides, urban development, and most importantly: climate change. Unusual climates have forced monarchs to migrate differently than their normal path disrupting their routines. Warmer fall months are especially dangerous when it comes to monarch butterflies. The loss of biodiversity is another major factor that is leading to butterfly extinction. If butterflies were to go extinct, it would pose a substantial threat to terrestrial ecosystems worldwide. Not only would we lose an important connector in a thriving web ecosystem, but also plants would lose their resilience to diseases. Butterflies are major pollinators, when they travel from plant to plant they are spreading pollen from groups of plants far away from each other. In doing so, plants get exposed to potential diseases and threats and are able to build resistance against harm. A loss of pollinators to keep the environment going would result in a drop of plants ability to reproduce. Thousands of plant species would rapidly decline in population worldwide. The Evergreens are hoping to raise awareness towards this rising issue. We hope that as their importance becomes clear, key stakeholders will look towards conserving our butterflies. The creation of nature areas and protected areas dedicated towards butterflies are being done by The National Wildlife Federation. They are restoring monarchs habitats and encouraging surrounding communities to grow native plants for the monarchs to feed off of. If you are in the area of the monarch’s migration path, look into planting milkweed given that it is their favorite. The National Wildlife Federation made a Mayor’s Monarch Pledge through a tri-national initiative with The United States, Mexico, and Canada to take action and set policies for the protection of our monarch butterflies. The Evergreens gained newfound knowledge on our beloved butterflies, and we hope that you did as well.
The Evergreens Fly Away
Our team is indubitably grateful for the opportunity provided to raise awareness on this crucial subject. We would like to thank Dr. Kazempour, faculty of Glenside Elementary, and all of you for following along on our journey to help save the butterflies. Our team can agree that it was fully heartwarming to not only further our knowledge, but also those of the surrounding communities. A few final words from The Evergreens team members:
“I am very grateful to have been given the chance to spread awareness on such a time sensitive issue to such a broad audience. I feel as if our team truly made an impact, granted how small we are, because of how many different people of all ages and occupations we got to talk to.”- Samantha Stehn
“When the EACAP project was first talked about at the beginning of the semester I steeled myself for a months long process of grueling work. What actually followed turned out to be an enoyable endeavor in which I made new friends, developed in-depth environmental awareness, and got to serve my community and the planet as an inhabitant of planet earth.” –Kevin Harris
“I am incredibly appreciative of all that I have learned from taking environmental science with Dr. Kazempour. I have learned so much from not only the class, but also the EACAP project that was assigned. Influencing and teaching the younger generation about current issues facing the world globally was very thrilling and captivating. “- Kenisha Brown
“Dr. Kazempour’s class introduced me to a lot of concepts I probably never would have looked at if it had not of been for her enviomental science class. She introduced me to a lot of things going on the world I am now actually paying attention to. The EACAP project did the same thing as well, it introduced me to new people, experiences and overall a good time over the course of this semester.” – Chloe Remaly
