Watching the caterpillars from their small, fearful youth into still chrysalides, before emerging as vivid butterflies taught me how what we consider “nature” is in fact not all that different from us.

While participating in this program, I began to understand that monarchs are crucial to more than just the environment. These little insects connect people within a community, or even people around the world. Not only was I able to learn this, I was able to see it with my very own two eyes as people from different communities came together in this program with a similar care for the environment.

This experience was just so amazing and helped me learn the importance and amazingness of even the smallest of insects. This helped me change my worldview a little bit. I was always concerned with climate change and everything but I was never concerned enough to do anything or think about it much. This program, however, helped to show me how great even insects were and how we had to help them.

I was able to share the beautiful moment of tagging and releasing with a girl from the Ronald McDonald house going through treatment at the hospital. She had such an amazing time holding the butterflies and watching them flutter off to Mexico. I was also able to tell many people about what I had learned and they were all fascinated at how just a small butterfly could have such an amazing life...

Although I hated the thought of living together with these insects, I would wake up each morning excited to see how the caterpillars have evolved overnight. Even the mere sight of seeing the caterpillars eat from the leaves evoked a joyous sensation that I was doing something that would help the environment.

I decided to plant native plants in my backyard instead of a lawn. I plan to replace the berm in front of my house with flox, a native ground cover sometime soon as well. The Monarchs Matter Summer Program and a lot of the work at ReWild in general really inspired me to try and help the environment...

I always thought they were "untouchable," because my whole life I was told I cannot hold them. Now I know it is possible...

As I brought home my two monarch caterpillars, I was so ecstatic to be able to watch them transform into butterflies. My little brother named one caterpillar Shrek and the other one Fiona (since Shrek is his favorite movie). Every morning my brother would run into my room to check on the caterpillars and ask me when they would turn into butterflies...

After this experience, I plan to keep raising monarchs every year and spreading the word of their importance.

My baby brother was fascinated when he saw the caterpillars eating and moving around, and he decided to name them Dancy and Chunky...

A caterpillar's transformation is not unknown, yet at first glance, the entire feat seemed unimaginable.

At Sands Point Preserve, ReWild Long Island and Monarchs Matter announced the four RTR Summer Program student reflection winners!

This summer, our students helped raise or metamorphose over 80 monarchs—but the butterflies were not the only ones that metamorphosed.