The Butterfly Lab

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The Butterfly Lab is an online exhibit from the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and the Chicago Academy of Sciences. This lovely exhibit includes information about breeding, feeding, and maintaining the caterpillars and butterflies within the museum’s Judy Istock Butterfly Haven’s artificial environment.Students can tour the lab virtually and will find about butterfly anatomy, life cycle, and behavior as well as an introduction to interdependence between butterflies and plants. A field guide features images and information on twenty native and international species found in the Judy Istock Butterfly Haven on an average day. Students can also consult the FAQs and work independently or with their teachers on the suggested butterfly activities. There are also audio portions of the website that describe what happens to butterflies over the winter and why they are colored so brightly.

Designed for students in upper elementary through high school, The Butterfly Lab from the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum provides everything your students need to explore the life of a butterfly, from vocabulary and reference materials to field guides and activities.The vocabulary and reference materials are challenging and thorough. Throughout the site, a drop-down window offers quick access to a glossary of terms, defining (using a pop-up window) vocabulary in the areas of Life Cycle, Body Parts, Life Systems and more.Using this glossary, you can find the term Lifetime Track, defined as “The invisible path between the place where a butterfly began its life (mostly determined by its mother) and where it dies (determined by itself).” Unlike the invisible path of the butterfly, this site provides a very clear path for the student, from Anatomy to Life Cycle and Behavior, culminating in Interdependence, explaining the role butterflies play in the greater environment. Navigation is the same throughout the site, with all sections available from each page. Each section has a preload feature so once the section is accessed, multimedia is readily accessible without waiting for each element on the page to appear.The field guides, covering both International and North American species, provide images of the butterfly in all forms as well as information about the eating habits and habitat range of listed species. In addition to clear diagrams and vivid photographs, you can listen to an expert on subjects such as over wintering and warning coloration. Audio is in MP3 format and transcripts of each clip are also available.Like the butterfly, expect your students to experience a metamorphosis as they inquire and investigate as scientists. Students can select and interact with the material using mouseovers to define anatomy of all stages of development and the life cycle. Through the site the students are encouraged to observe and make comparisons, in some cases there are audio answers to the questions posed.In the Try This! section are hands on offline activities you may use with your class or independently. Can’t find your answer? Try the FAQ or connect with the biology staff using the Ask an Expert feature.