1. “Putting the sting on yellow jackets” by Denis Cuff. Contra Costa Times September 5, 1986
2. “Yellow Hunter Meets The Yellowjackets” by Steve Rubenstein. San Francisco Chronicle June 19, 1987
3. “Yellow jackets make collector’s day” by Peter Spink. Danbury News-Times July 26, 1992
4. “Respite From Teaching Proves Deadly to Wasps” by Andrew H Malcolm. New York Times September 15, 1992
5. “Teacher enjoys sting of success” by Andrew McManis. Gannett Suburban Newspapers September 2, 1996
6. “Brewster entomologist is mad for hornets, wasps” by Dan Shapley. Poughkeepsie Journal September 12, 2004
7. “Sting Operation” by Robert Miller. Danbury News-Times September 19, 2004
8. “Teacher seeks nests for research on wasps” by Vesna Jaksic. Greenwich Time September 21, 2004
9. “Teacher’s sideline: wasps and venom” by Marcela Rojas. The Journal News September 26, 2006
10. “Butterfly studies take wing at GHS” by Lisa Chamoff. Greenwich Time September 29, 2010
After a countdown from five, science teacher Parker Gambino slowly opened his hand, allowing the brightly colored monarch butterfly, whose wings he had been gently pinching, to take flight and soar above Greenwich High School.
Gambino and several students from his Environmental Experiences class took three of the insects, which they had raised from eggs found in a patch of milkweed on school grounds, and set them free Wednesday afternoon. They also wielded a net to collect wild monarchs, which congregated by a butterfly bush in the front of the school. Gambino placed tiny numbered tags on each butterfly’s wing, which are used to track the insects during their lengthy southward migration.
Their likely destination is Mexico, to which monarchs migrate starting in August.
This was the first year Gambino covered the butterfly life cycle and migration. An entomologist who has taught at GHS since 1996, Gambino attended a workshop held by the Monarch Teacher Network, and thought it “looked like really exciting stuff to do.”
The curriculum goes beyond the basics that most children learn in elementary school. Over 30 days, students fed the insects, which subsist on milkweed, and cleaned the cages. Along with the science, it covers North American geography and culture. In Mexico, the monarchs arrive around the Day of the Dead at the beginning of November, and some people believe they bear the spirits of their dead ancestors.
The butterflies head north in the spring, but it takes several generations of the insects to complete the journey to the Northeast.
GHS senior Patrick Duff remembers back in third grade seeing colorful butterflies emerge from cocoons.
“It wasn’t nearly as in-depth,” Patrick, 17, who was responsible for photography during the release, said of the third-grade experience. “We never cleaned the cages out.”
Pechina Alix, 16, let the first butterfly go, but held it gingerly on the lid of a plastic container.
“I just didn’t want to touch it,” she explained.
Gambino also put a dab of honey solution on a few of the students’ noses as a way to get the butterflies to rest there before taking off, but none would alight.
Through the project, the students also became part of the network that tracks monarchs. There are people in Mexico who work as spotters and collect as much as $5 per butterfly for their work, Patrick explained.
“The other people down in Mexico depend on the income from the monarchs,” he said.
It is studies like this that have helped people learn about monarch migration, Gambino said. People from the U.S. didn’t know about the insects’ wintering until the 1970s.
Gambino tries to conduct research projects with his classes that take them around the campus. In previous years, his Environmental Experiences classes have studied insects that feed on acorns and invasive plants.
The project kept the students’ interest.
“It’s really interesting how they become a butterfly,” said junior Emily O’Hara, 16. “It’s kind of exciting.”
Staff Writer Lisa Chamoff can be reached at lisa.chamoff@scni.com or 203-625-4439.
