Discovering the Greatness in Small Creatures and Actions: Aaron's Reflection
- Cynthia Zhang
- Oct 25, 2025
- 3 min read
By Aaron Son, RTR Reflection Runner-up & Great Neck South High School Freshman
The Monarchs Matter RTR Program was a short but meaningful 3 weeks of my summer so far. This program was really fun and interesting because we got to raise monarch butterflies, but it was also interesting because it taught us things you can't learn elsewhere. I remember just a few days after I got my caterpillars, I came downstairs after waking up to find my mom staring at them. She usually hates animals and insects, but something about these caterpillars drew her to them. She was commenting on the way they were walking and was amazed by the way they made chrysalises. This was amazing to me because, my whole life, I knew my mom hated insects but here she was looking at them, fascinated. This 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. It also helped me realize just how fragile this ecosystem is and how much we need to protect it. For example, if all the milkweed in the area just disappeared, the monarch butterfly population would take a huge hit. Also, they wouldn't be around for people to enjoy and admire. This inspired me to talk to some people, and now my family is planning to plant some milkweed in the near future.
In this program, I learned about not only life but also death. In the first session, I was able to get an egg to hatch and raise. I was excited but also sort of nervous. When it hatched, it was so cute and tiny. However, because of a mistake I made, I killed it not even a day after it hatched. I was very sad and was reminded again of how fragile life is. One thing that I did ended up in another creature dying. This just helped me realize our individual impact on our ecosystem, animals, and even people around us. One tiny thing we do, like throwing a straw on the side of the road or throwing bottle caps in a bush, can lead to an organism's death. With enough people doing these tiny actions, we can destroy whole ecosystems. The worst part is that most people don't even realize the damage that they are doing. The ecosystems that are getting destroyed and the animals that won't live to grow up, reproduce, or feed their offspring. This also applies to the relationships we have with the people around us. We say one small thing here and another thing here. We don't think it does anything, but it does. It stacks up. It builds up until they can't take it anymore. Until they "die," just like the animals who get hurt and damaged.
This whole program was a rollercoaster of successes and failures. However, the thing that stuck out to me out of everything was just how much of an impact we had on our environment. How fragile our world is and how we must protect it. How we must preserve this world for our children and grandchildren to see. In this program, I learned about the marvelousness of life. I also learned about how fragile this life was and how every person must do their individual part to protect it. This program has inspired me to do more for my ecosystem around me and I am glad that I was a part of it.
Stay tuned for more RTR Student Reflections on the Monarch Moments blog!
