Environmental stewardship encouraged

[Flower Mound, Texas – Nov. 15, 2008]  Thanks to Coram Deo Academy Senior Matthew Thiede, butterflies now have a permanent home at the school’s Flower Mound campus.  Registered as Monarch Butterfly Waystation #2721 by the Monarch Watch organization, the Lepidoptera Garden was created by Thiede as an Eagle Scout project.  Mr. Theide organized a work day which drew most of the basketball team, fellow scouts and other classmates.  The students brought plants, trellises and benches to create the waystation.

            Mary Ligon, Coram Deo Academy science teacher and a master naturalist, plans to use the garden, one of only three in the area, as an educational tool in her classes.  Students will learn how to tag returning monarchs, recording the data with the University of Kansas, which studies migratory changes. 

            An example of much needed environmental stewardship, these Monarch Waystations provide milkweeds, nectar plants and shelter for monarchs and many other types of butterflies and help assure the continuation of the monarch migration in North America.