The Last Chrysalis Forms!

Today is Monday, December 4 and all of the monarch larva are in their chrysalis! Sometime last night the last caterpillar formed its chrysalis! If you are interested, you can see pictures of them by our blogs. Stay tuned for more of our updates.

Good News

We have good news! Three of the larva made their chrysalis and the other one dropped into its "J". We are going to try to capture it on a webcam forming its chrysalis. Stay tuned for more updates on how our monarch larva are doing.

Thanksgiving Break

Over Immaculate Conception's Thanksgiving break, we lost another caterpillar! It formed its "J" shape but it died before it made its chrysalis. It was even eating well. So we have lost 2 of them but I have a feeling the others will survive.

Loss of Caterpillar

Bad news, on Friday, November 20, we lost the small caterpillar that wasn't eating. We knew this would happen, so we tried to set the food beside it; it ate a little bit but not enough. We still don't know why it wasn't eating. All the other larva were eating properly except the small one.

Introducing the Monarchs to the Rearing Chambers

On monday the sixth grade students, at 1:28 pm watched the launch of the Atlantis space shuttle carrying the monarch larva to space. Usually the monarch larva would eat milkweed, but we have the larva on an artficial diet. We discovered that one of the larva is not eating properly, like the others. We are becoming worried that the larva won't eat enough and possibly die.

Monarch Larva Arrive at IC School

November 16, 2009- Our sixth grade is partnering with NASA in their latest experiment called Monarchs in Space. We got our monarch larva last Friday. They came in a kit which included an artificial diet (instead of milkweed), 6 larva, and dowel for transferring the larva to their rearing chambers. Our teacher, Mrs. Hill, built rearing chambers to place the larva in. We will check it daily to see if they are healthy and eating properly and track all changes.