13-Year-Old New York Student Takes Action to Protect Endangered Monarch Butterflies

The Climate Leaders Fellowship is a leadership development program for students interested in climate change and environmental sustainability. The online program is provided by a collaboration between the Stanford University Deliberative Democracy Lab and the Rustic Pathways Foundation.

Gavin participated in the 2023 spring cycle of the Climate Leaders Fellowship. Read all about his project and experience below!

Gavin
Age 13
New York City, New York

My name is Gavin and I am 13 years old. I was born in Bangkok, Thailand and currently live in New York City, where I am a rising 9th grader. I have strong interests in engineering, marine biology and conservation. Apart from these interests, I also enjoy playing the cello, composing music, and playing tennis.

When I was developing my project for the Climate Fellowship, I wanted to find something that I could start now, develop throughout high school and leave for others in my community to continue. It was also important for me to find a project that would be simple and manageable, so that it could possibly be replicated by others and scaled, thereby increasing its impact. I also wanted to find a project that would be easy for young children to understand because I think it is important to start learning about climate change and conservation at an early age.

After doing a bit of research, I decided that my project would center around trying to help protect the migratory monarch butterfly, which is now considered endangered.

I learned that migratory monarch butterflies primarily lay their eggs and refuel on the nectar of milkweed plants. Climate change is affecting the growth and quality of milkweed. I therefore thought that I could try and plant milkweed to offset habitat loss.

Since I live in an apartment building in the middle of New York City, I had to think about where I could plant milkweed. My school is located in an area with more greenery, so I spoke with a high school science teacher at my school, who is also the “Green Dean”, to discuss planting milkweed at school. He was open to the idea, already had some milkweed seeds, and helped me find a couple of sunny locations to plant.

The biggest challenge in implementing my project was to find the right person to speak with (since I am in middle school, I did not know any of the high school teachers), and to also coordinate with the teacher’s schedule to first meet to discuss my proposed project and then to plant the seeds, since he is quite busy.

With his advice and supervision, I planted 40 milkweed seeds in two different sunny locations at school. In one dedicated location I planted a total of 18 seeds in 3 rows of 6. In the other location (where other plants were growing), I planted 22 seeds randomly.

I learned that milkweed plants generally take 10 days to 1 month to germinate, and after checking on my plants, I found that after 2 weeks, the plants had germinated (2 – 4 cm tall).

I hope that the plants will continue to grow throughout the summer. I will check on them in the fall, and determine next steps then. If the plants are growing well, I hope to plant even more, and get some more school community members involved.

My school goes from Kindergarten through 12th grade, so I hope to be able to create a curriculum to get the younger students in the school involved in the project. This might include having them help plant seeds, as well as viewing the butterflies if they come. Ultimately, if the plants flower and butterflies come, then the school could apply to be a Monarch Butterfly Waystation.

I would like to continue participating in the Climate Fellowship. With its global reach, I think I could get more participants interested in planting milkweed in their own communities. If monarch butterflies are not indigenous to their countries, then we could research which animals are endangered in their countries because of climate change and find a way to reverse those negative effects. The possibilities are endless!