- Journey North: An educational and citizen science program devoted to tracking the migrations
of many wildlife species, including monarch butterflies. Excellent educational
materials and interactive features that target K-12 classrooms, but are useful
for anyone interested in phenology or migration.
- Monarch Watch: An educational outreach program based at the University of Kansas that engages
citizen-scientists in large-scale research projects. This program produces real
data that relate to a serious conservation issue.
Monarch Watch gets children of all ages involved in science. Its website provides
a wealth of information on the biology and conservation of monarch butterflies
and many children use it as a resource for science fair projects or reports.
Additionally, children are encouraged to showcase their research or school projects
on the Monarch Watch website. Children can be involved in real science with the
tagging program and the Monarch Way Station program.
- Texas Monarch Watch: A program sponsored by Texas Parks and Wildlife that provides sources for
monitoring all stages of monarchs in Texas. It also provides past monarch migration
information and background information on monarch biology. Monarch Monitoring
kits and instructional materials can be found at the site as well as links to
sources and useful field guides for Texas species.
- Monarch Health: This is a citizen science program that tracks infection rates of the Ophyrocystis elektroskirrha (Oe) parasite in monarch populations across North America. Their website includes
information on how to rear healthy monarchs, check for parasites in adult monarchs,
and some of the latest research on Oe.
- Monarch Monitoring Project: A citizen science program that tracks monarch migrations in Cape May NJ.
It provides a year-to-year history of monarchs in Cape May obtained from data
gathered by staff, seasonal technicians, and many energetic and dedicated volunteers.
- Monarch Larva Monitoring Project: This began in 1997 at the University of Minnesota. It involves citizens in
collecting data that will help to explain the distribution and distribution patterns
of monarchs in North America. The program tracks distribution and abundance of
eggs and larvae throughout the monarch breeding range.
- Tactics and Vectors--Research on Butterfly Migration: This is a site encouraging anyone to participate in a continent-wide field
research program that documents the flight tactics and navigational behavior of
migratory butterfly species in North America. It is also a tool for teachers
to develop lesson plans based on field studies of butterfly migration to illustrate
methods of data collection, analysis, and hypothesis testing.
- Milkweed and Ozone Pollution: This is an instructional site for carrying out a milkweed check-up project
to see how ozone pollution affects milkweed plants. It provides background information
on plant use for observing pollution and data sheets for teachers to use with
their students.
- North American Butterfly Association: NABA is a non-profit organization formed in 1992. NABA's mission is to increase
public enjoyment and conservation of butterflies. NABA focuses on the joys of
non-consumptive recreational butterflying including listing, gardening, observation,
photography, rearing and conservation. They also coordinate the annual 4th of
July Butterfly Count and other butterfly observations. Chapters throughout North
America are great resources for meeting people interested in butterflies.
- National Phenology Network: A site that brings together citizen scientists, government agencies, non-profit
groups, educators and students of all ages to monitor the impacts of climate change
on plants and animals in the United States. This site is an information sharing
network providing researchers with more data than they could personally accumulate.
- The Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA) project is an ambitious effort to collect and provide access to quality-controlled data about butterflies and moths. The project is housed at Montana State University and directed by staff at the Big Sky Institute. Our goal is to fill the needs of scientists and nature observers by bringing verified occurrence and life history data into one accessible location.
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