WICHITA FALLS ( KFDX/KJTL ) — City View fourth graders know a little more about monarch butterflies after a hands-on learning experience.

Representatives from the Rolling Plains Chapter of Texas Master Naturalists brought some of their friends, about 15 monarch butterflies, for the kids to tag before beginning their long flight.

Texas Master Naturalist Outreach Specialist Lynn Seman said her goal is to help teach the students about monarch butterflies and how tagging them can help citizen scientists track the number of monarchs.

Seman said the number of monarchs has decreased each year and that the species could be completely wiped out by catastrophic events such as hurricanes or other weather events.

She said education is the best tool to help protect the fragile insect, “We want the kids to leave here with a love for the monarch butterfly and a love for conservation so that we can keep them around for many, many generations to come.”

The kids learned about how monarch butterfly tagging began, and they tagged some butterflies before releasing them to continue their journey. Seman said Lake Wichita is a popular resting stop for the winged insect, and many of them receive their tags to be tracked.

You can find more information about the chapter here .

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