Youth and Family Education Update
by Evelyn Magee, Youth and Family Education Intern
Monarch butterfly. Photo by Evelyn McGee The Youth and Family Education department has been busy this year! With the help of our volunteers and our staff, we welcomed over 5,000 parents and students to the gardens during the 2023-2024 school year. During our field trips, we introduced students to interesting science topics such as the anatomy of flowers, how seeds grow, what is in dirt (where kids could grab their own shovels and discover for themselves), and how butterflies grow up! For the butterfly station, we even had a special guest, Carle, an eastern black swallowtail butterfly, to aid in our lessons.
As we transitioned into summer camp, our monarch caterpillars wrapped themselves up in their chrysalises, and emerged during our Garden Sprouts and Fairies and Gnomes camp! Our campers spent a lot of time observing and drawing our butterflies as they dried their wings and eventually took off.
We have had a number of unique camps this summer such as Fairies and Gnomes, Garden Sprouts, and Arts al Fresco. Fairies and Gnomes has been a particular hit, where campers can learn all about magical creatures and become friends with fairies by building houses for them in our fairy forest. This year, the fairies were very happy with us and left us a fairy message – which we were able to decode with the help of our fairy expert, Miss Bailey.
Be sure to check out our upcoming family-friendly opportunities such as learning about monarch migration and having fun with pumpkin painting or flower pressing. Learn more and sign up on the Parktakes website at fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/parktakes or at Green Spring’s front desk.
Hope you have had a flutterific summer.
