Miami Lakes K-8 Center has received the first Monarch Waystation Certification in Miami-Dade County for elementary and middle schools. Miami Lakes K-8 Center’s PTSA and the Girl Scouts Troop #500 have collaborated to create a Certified Monarch Butterfly Waystation 7273 called “Home of the Monarchs.”
Each fall, hundreds of millions of Monarch butterflies migrate from the United States and Canada to Mexico and California where they wait out the winter under conditions favor a return flight in the spring. The Monarch migration is a world natural wonder, yet it is threatened by habitat loss in North America.
Monarch Waystations are places that provide resources such as host plant milkweeds, nectar sources, larvae, and energy sources that are necessary for Monarchs to produce successive generations and sustain their migration.
Monarch butterfly populations are declining because milkweed and nectar sources are threatened due to the development and widespread use of herbicides in croplands, pastures, and roadsides.