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Veterans Elementarychildren get up closewith nature

By B.C. Manionbcmanion@cnewspubs.com

Veterans Elementary is a school where“Caterpillar Crossing”signs are used to pre-vent the creeping crawlers from beingcrushed by kids and adults.

It’s also a place where children can get afirsthand look at the life cycle of butterflies –watching how they transform from a cater-pillar to a chrysalis to a creature with wings.

“You should have seen it when the cater-pillars were out,”said Lorilie Jani,who takescare of the school’s butterfly garden.“At theend of October, we saw our caterpillarsstarting to show up,and by the first week inNovember we were on caterpillar patrol, asthey were everywhere,”said Jani,who is theschool’s plant manager.

The school’s morning news programsalerted everyone on campus to keep an eyeout for the caterpillars to keep from crush-ing them,Jani said.

The children were excited about savingthe caterpillars.They would tell Jani:“There’stwo over there.There’s one here. Oh, thatone got squished.”

The garden’s caretaker also began cut-ting branches of milkweed that were loadedwith caterpillars and putting them in a but-terfly hatchery that she built.

Jani had so many caterpillars it was hardto keep them fed.

She pointed to stalks in the garden:“This iswhat’s left of our milkweed. Look how theydemolished it,”said Jani,who appreciates thekindness of teachers who brought in milk-

weed from home to replenish her supply.The butterfly hatchery also served as

protection for the caterpillars from preda-tors.The lid of the wooden box is coveredwith green, pod-like chrysalides awaitingtheir transformation into butterflies.

Deana Wolkov,a teaching intern, said it’sgreat to have a classroom next door to thebutterfly garden.

The kindergartners she teaches “are veryinterested to see what’s happening,” shesaid.The class has been learning about but-

terflies and having the 12- by-300 foot gar-den next door provides an excellentresource for teaching,she said.

“For them to actually see it and seeingthe transformation makes a big difference intheir learning,”she said.“There’s nothing likeseeing it.”

Jani gets tremendous satisfaction fromhelping children learn and by helping tobring a bit of beauty to the school campus.

She said she and helpers – including chil-dren and adults – created the garden from

seeds.The butterfly garden came about afterdevastating freezes took out the nativeplants that were planted on campus whenthe school opened in 2008.

Jani credits Deb Hamilton,Bob Stalnakerand Bill Wampler, three master gardener vol-unteers, for being enormously helpful increating the butterfly garden.

The master gardeners made podcasts toteach the youngsters about planting theseeds and also pitched in with the planting.

Each classroom was given 22 startercups and seeds, Jani said.

Plants in the garden include purple cone-flowers, flax, Johnny-jump-ups, salvia,cosmos, morning glory, snow in summer,foxglove, maiden pink, tropical milkweed,Shasta daily and cardinal pipevine.All of theplants were grown from seed.

At its peak, the garden was beautiful, Janisaid.

“It brought more butterflies than ever,”Jani said.

All of the seeds and supplies used for thegarden were paid for from funds raisedthrough recycling newspaper and cardboard.

While pleased with the garden’sprogress, Jani has already set her sights onmaking some improvements next year.

For one thing,she plans to change the lo-cation of the greenhouse next year – tokeep it out of the path of soccer balls.

She’s also planning to build a bigger but-terfly hatchery.

Bringing learning to life

Lorilie Jani shows off the butterfly hatchery she built and the scores of chrysalides waitingto transform into butterflies.(Photos by B.C. Manion)

Caterpillar Crossing signs help to keep kidsand adults from trampling on caterpillars.