By happenstance a few years ago I discovered the most wonderful online educational resource called Journey North. It is designed for teachers and their K-12 students but anyone would enjoy participating in its many interesting projects.
Here is their own description of what they offer:
"Journey North engages students in a global study of wildlife migration and seasonal change. K-12 students share their own field observations with classmates across North America. They track the coming of spring through the migration patterns of monarch butterflies, robins, hummingbirds, whooping cranes, gray whales, bald eagles - and other birds and mammals; the budding of plants; changing sunlight; and other natural events. Find migration maps, pictures, standards-based lesson plans, activities and information to help students make local observations and fit them into a global context. Widely considered a best practices model for education, Journey North is the nation's premiere "citizen science" project for children. The general public is welcome to participate."
For the last few weeks I have been working with a local second grade class on the Journey North project called "Symbolic Monarch Butterfly Migration". The kids designed and colored paper butterflies and we put labels on the back of each one with the child's name, school information and the following greeting: "gracias por cuidar a las mariposas monarcas este invierno, de parte de sus vecinos del norte", which means "thank you for taking care of the monarchs this winter, from your northern neighbors". These were packaged up and sent off, eventually to reside in a Mexican classroom located close to one of the winter monarch butterfly sanctuaries. In the spring this Rhode Island second grade will receive paper butterflies back from Mexican children. In the meantime they can read weekly updates on monarch migration and see the butterflies' progress on an online map and on another map look at all the classrooms in the U.S. and Canada (including themselves) that have sent symbolic butterflies to Mexico.
I can't recommend Journey North highly enough -it's one of the best educational initiatives I have ever seen.
Here are the Rhode Island butterflies and a booklet in Spanish which we printed out on the Journey North website as a gift to the Mexican class receiving our butterflies.