Welcome to the Butterfly Webquest! This lesson will teach you the three stages of the life cycle of the Painted Lady Butterfly. You will begin your lesson when your live caterpillars arrive. You will be observing the changes that take place every day during each stage of the life cycle as your caterpillars grow and shed their skin, form their chrysalis and finally emerge as a beautiful butterfly. You will also learn all the important body parts of the butterfly, build a butterfly house, and have some fun watching a miracle of science. Are you ready? Then let's go!

The Task
This Webquest will take you to many fun and interesting websites as you answer questions about the life cycle of the Painted Lady butterfly. You will be involved in the following activities during this three-week lesson:

• build a butterfly house (or order one from earthsbirthday.org). There are directions for building your butterfly house in the booklet that comes with your live caterpillars. You may want to ask an adult to help you.

• Keep a daily journal of the changes that take place. You will write down the changes that you see each day and draw a picture to help describe what you see.

• Visit many websites to answer questions about the caterpillar, chrysalis and the butterfly. You may want to ask an adult to help you.

• Meet a pen pal. If you are interested in meeting another person who likes butterflies, you can visit a special website just for pen pals and talk to them by e-mail.

• Read fun stories about caterpillars and butterflies. You can find most of the books at your school or local public library.

• Give a special gift to Mother Earth when you release your butterflies.

• Earth's Birthday Project earthsbirthday.org is the site where you will order your caterpillars and also learn how to build your butterfly house.

• The Butterfly Website www.butterflywebsite.com is a great place to visit to see photos of the Painted Lady caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly. You can find answers to your webquest questions here, also.

• Butterflies of New Mexico http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/distr/lepid/bflyusa/nm/toc.htm will show you other kinds of butterflies you might see around your neighborhood.

• Life Cycle of the Butterfly http://www.butterflywebsite.com/Articles/ShowArticle.cfm?ID-157will show you the steps of the life cycle.

The very first thing you will need to do is order your live caterpillars from Earth's Birthday Project earthsbirthday.org Your teacher will do this for you, or if you are learning at home, ask an adult to help you. Allow a week to 10 days for the caterpillars to arrive.

Click on the blue words below that say Week 1 to get started.