Lots of official state symbols began as classroom projects: a class learns about a species, writes letters, and a legislator takes it from there. Your class could be the one that gives Missouri its butterfly. Everything here is free and ready to use: lesson plans for every grade band, a five-day unit calendar, slides, assessments and a letter home.
The Regal Fritillary works as a science unit, a civics unit, and a writing unit, and the pieces below snap together in any order. Most teachers start with the games, teach the science, then finish with the letter.
Put the Bug Quiz HQ games up on the projector and play in teams, or let students race through them on their own devices. The Sticker Book saves per device, so a classroom computer can chase all 19 species across the whole semester.
Life cycles (one brood a year, summer aestivation, caterpillars that overwinter), food webs (violets or nothing), native vs. introduced species, and umbrella species and habitat loss. The Nominee page has the full background, and the cheat sheet below condenses it.
Walk through how a bill becomes a law using a real, kid-sized example: changing a state symbol. Then have the class send the ready-made classroom letter on the Take Action page to your district's legislators.
Four complete lessons, one per grade band from kindergarten through high school. Copy one into your planner and adapt freely. Each pairs naturally with Missouri Learning Standards strands in science, social studies and English language arts.
Life cycle basics and the idea of "native," with drawing and movement.
LESSON: Meet the Regal Fritillary Grade band: K-2 Subject: Science Time: 45 minutes OBJECTIVES Students will be able to: - Name the four stages of a butterfly's life cycle - Explain that the Regal Fritillary caterpillar eats only violets - Tell the difference between an animal that is "from here" (native) and one that was brought here YOU WILL NEED - A projector or device with the Bug Quiz HQ page open - Paper, crayons or markers - Optional: photos of a regal fritillary and a violet STEPS 1. Hook (5 min): Show the Regal Fritillary and ask: "Have you ever seen this butterfly? It lives in Missouri and almost nowhere else." 2. Life cycle (10 min): Walk through egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly. Add the surprise: the baby caterpillar sleeps ALL winter in the grass, and eats only one food, violets. 3. Act it out (10 min): Students curl up as overwintering caterpillars, "wake up" in spring, munch invisible violets, and emerge as butterflies. 4. Native vs. visitor (10 min): Explain that the honeybee, our current state insect, came from Europe long ago, like a guest who moved in. The Regal Fritillary has always lived here. 5. Draw (10 min): Students draw the Regal Fritillary on a prairie with violets. Hang the prairie on your wall. WRAP-UP Ask: "Why can't the Regal Fritillary just live anywhere?" (It needs violets and prairie.) "Should Missouri's special insect be one that has always lived here?" EXTENSION Play the Who Am I? game on the For Kids page as a class, with students voting on each guess.
Food webs, habitat loss and umbrella species, with a team game.
LESSON: The Prairie Puzzle Grade band: 3-5 Subject: Science (ecosystems) Time: 60 minutes OBJECTIVES Students will be able to: - Build a simple prairie food web and identify what happens when a piece is removed - Define "habitat loss" and "umbrella species" - Explain why protecting one species can protect an ecosystem YOU WILL NEED - Index cards and string or a whiteboard - The Bug Quiz HQ page (For Kids) on a projector - The Nominee page for reference STEPS 1. Hook (10 min): Play one round of Real or Ridiculous? as a class, thumbs up for REAL, thumbs down for RIDICULOUS. 2. Build the web (15 min): Cards for sun, prairie grass, violets, regal fritillary, wild bees, grassland birds, coyote. Students connect who needs whom with string. 3. Remove a piece (10 min): Take away the violets. Who is in trouble? (The regal.) Take away the prairie itself. Who is in trouble? (Everyone.) Share the real number: more than 99% of America's tallgrass prairie is gone. 4. Umbrella species (10 min): Introduce the term. Protecting enough prairie for the Regal Fritillary automatically shelters everything else in the web. The butterfly is the umbrella. 5. Team quiz (10 min): The Great Missouri Bug Quiz in two teams. Questions shuffle each game, so a rematch is never the same. WRAP-UP Exit ticket: "Explain to a friend why saving one butterfly can save a whole prairie." EXTENSION Plant native violets in a corner of the schoolyard and adopt it as your class's micro-prairie.
How a bill becomes law, persuasive writing, and a real letter to a real legislator.
LESSON: Symbols and Statutes Grade band: 6-8 Subject: Civics and English Language Arts Time: 60 minutes (plus optional second session for writing) OBJECTIVES Students will be able to: - Describe the path a bill takes through the Missouri General Assembly - Evaluate arguments for and against changing a state symbol - Write a persuasive letter to an elected official using evidence YOU WILL NEED - The Case page and the Take Action page from this site - Missouri Revised Statutes section 10.070 (the one-sentence state insect law; easy to find online) - Paper or devices for letter writing STEPS 1. Hook (5 min): Show RSMo 10.070. Point out that the law calls the honeybee "native," and the Missouri Department of Conservation says it is not. Laws can be wrong, and citizens can change them. 2. The path of a bill (15 min): Sponsor, committee, House vote, Senate vote, governor's signature. State symbol bills are real bills that follow the real process, which makes them a perfect practice case. 3. Debate (15 min): Split the class. One side argues to keep the honeybee, the other argues for the Regal Fritillary. Use the Case page and Nominee page for evidence. Then discuss: which arguments used facts, and which used feelings? 4. Write (20 min): Each student drafts a short persuasive letter to a Missouri legislator. The classroom template on the Take Action page is the scaffold; students must add one original argument and one piece of evidence. 5. Send it (5 min): Look up your district's representative and senator using the lookup links on the Take Action page. Send the best letters, or all of them. WRAP-UP Discuss: "If the bill passed, what would actually change? What wouldn't?" (A symbol is a megaphone, not a habitat. Conservation still takes work.) EXTENSION Invite a local legislator or an MDC naturalist to visit class, in person or by video, and present the case to them directly.
Conservation biology, data interpretation, and a policy memo with real stakes.
LESSON: Data and the Decline Grade band: 9-12 Subject: Biology, Environmental Science, or Government Time: Two 50-minute sessions OBJECTIVES Students will be able to: - Explain how habitat loss and fragmentation drive local extinctions - Evaluate the trade-offs of land management tools (fire, haying, grazing) for a single-brood species - Write a one-page policy memo recommending a course of action, supported by evidence BACKGROUND FOR THE TEACHER The Regal Fritillary is a tallgrass prairie obligate: caterpillars feed only on native violets, there is one brood per year, and unfed caterpillars overwinter in prairie thatch. More than 99% of tallgrass prairie is gone and the remainder is fragmented. In 2024 USFWS proposed listing the eastern subspecies as endangered and the western subspecies (the one in Missouri) as threatened. The largest remaining populations are in the Great Plains (the Kansas Flint Hills and Nebraska Sandhills); western Missouri's prairies still support the species too. Prescribed fire keeps prairie healthy but can kill overwintering caterpillars if a whole site burns at once. SESSION ONE: THE PROBLEM 1. Hook (10 min): Show the species' historic range (about 30 states) vs. today (a handful of strongholds). Ask: what could erase a species from 90% of its range in a century? 2. Mechanisms (20 min): Mini-lecture or jigsaw on habitat loss, fragmentation and isolation, and life-history vulnerability (one brood, one host plant). Connect each to the regal specifically. 3. The manager's dilemma (20 min): Present the paradox: prairie needs fire, but fire kills overwintering caterpillars. Discuss in groups: how would you burn a prairie you manage, knowing this? (Real answer used by land managers: burn only a fraction of a site in any year, in patches, so refuges always remain.) SESSION TWO: THE MEMO 4. Brief (10 min): Students play conservation staffer. The legislature is considering naming the Regal Fritillary the state insect. A senator asks: "Will this actually help the species? What should we do?" 5. Research (15 min): Students pull evidence from this site's Nominee and Case pages, plus MDC and USFWS sources if available. 6. Write (25 min): One-page memo: the situation, what a symbol can and cannot do, and two concrete recommendations (for example: patch burning guidance, violet restoration, prairie corridor funding). ASSESSMENT Memos are graded on use of evidence, acknowledgment of trade-offs, and feasibility of recommendations. EXTENSION Compare the regal's situation to the monarch's (also a candidate for federal listing). Why does the more famous butterfly get more attention, and does fame follow symbols?
The reference materials behind the lessons. Copy them into a handout, a slide deck or your whiteboard.
A full week, scheduled. Swap days freely.
PRAIRIE BUTTERFLY WEEK: FIVE-DAY UNIT PLAN DAY 1: MEET THE BUTTERFLY - Hook: the Who Am I? game on the For Kids page, whole class - Teach: life cycle, violets-only diet, one brood a year - Handout: coloring page (younger) or fact sheet (older) - Exit ticket question 1 DAY 2: THE PRAIRIE - Teach: what tallgrass prairie is, and that more than 99% is gone - Activity: build the prairie food web (see The Prairie Puzzle lesson) - Introduce: umbrella species - Exit ticket question 2 DAY 3: NATIVE VS. INTRODUCED - Teach: the honeybee story (introduced in the 1600s, state insect of 16 states) - Debate or discuss: should a state symbol be native? - Game: Real or Ridiculous?, in teams - Handout: word search - Exit ticket question 3 DAY 4: HOW A BILL BECOMES A LAW - Teach: sponsor, committee, two chambers, governor's signature - Show: RSMo 10.070, the actual one-sentence law this would change - Activity: students draft persuasive letters (classroom template as scaffold) - Exit ticket question 4 DAY 5: SEND IT - Polish and send the class letter to your district's representative and senator - Play: The Great Missouri Bug Quiz, final tournament - Award: Friend of the Fritillary certificates - Reflect: "What can one classroom change?"
Every fact from this site, condensed to one page.
THE REGAL FRITILLARY (Speyeria idalia) WHAT IT IS - A large prairie butterfly: deep orange with black markings on top, dark hindwings spangled with silver spots underneath - First described for science in 1773 by Dru Drury - Found in no other state's symbol list; Missouri could claim it outright WHERE IT LIVES - Tallgrass prairie, and essentially nowhere else - Once found nearly statewide, when about a third of Missouri was prairie - More than 99% of America's original tallgrass prairie is gone - It survives on western Missouri's prairies; the largest remaining populations are in the Great Plains LIFE CYCLE (one shot a year) - One brood per year; a single bad season can erase a year's young - Caterpillars eat ONLY native violets, especially the prairie violet - Females rest through the hot months (aestivation), then lay eggs in late summer; one female may lay over 1,000 - Tiny caterpillars overwinter in the prairie thatch and wake when spring violets sprout WHY IT IS IN TROUBLE - Habitat loss: prairie plowed, paved and fragmented into islands - Isolated colonies die out one by one with no neighbors to refill them - Badly timed burning, mowing or haying can destroy overwintering caterpillars - Proposed for federal Endangered Species Act protection in 2024 THE CAMPAIGN - Missouri's current state insect, the honeybee, is not native (brought from Europe in the 1600s) and is the state insect of 16 states - The ask: make the Regal Fritillary Missouri's official state insect - A state symbol is a megaphone: it introduces millions of Missourians to a butterfly and a landscape most have never met Source notes: paraphrased from the Missouri Department of Conservation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Xerces Society. Verify before formal use.
Twelve terms with kid-friendly definitions.
PRAIRIE BUTTERFLY VOCABULARY native: a plant or animal that has lived in a place naturally, without people bringing it there introduced: a plant or animal that people brought to a new place (the honeybee came from Europe in the 1600s) tallgrass prairie: a grassland of tall grasses and wildflowers; it once covered about a third of Missouri habitat: the place where a plant or animal naturally lives and finds everything it needs habitat loss: when a habitat is destroyed or broken into pieces too small to live in host plant: the one plant a caterpillar must eat (for the Regal Fritillary, native violets) brood: one generation of young; the Regal Fritillary has just one brood each year aestivation: a summer rest, like hibernation but for hot weather overwinter: to survive through the winter (regal caterpillars overwinter in prairie thatch) umbrella species: a species whose protection automatically shelters many other species that share its home pollinator: an animal that carries pollen between flowers so plants can make seeds statute: a written law; Missouri's state insect lives in statute RSMo 10.070
Ten prompts, easy to hard, for any grade.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS Warm-up 1. What makes a plant or animal "native" to a place? 2. The Regal Fritillary caterpillar eats only violets. What are the risks of being a picky eater in nature? 3. Why might a butterfly that gets one brood a year be more fragile than one that gets three? Digging deeper 4. More than 99% of America's tallgrass prairie is gone. Where did it go, and what replaced it? 5. What does it mean that the Regal Fritillary is an "umbrella species"? Who else stands under the umbrella? 6. The honeybee is the state insect of 16 states. Does sharing a symbol make it weaker? Why or why not? 7. Missouri law calls the honeybee "the native honey bee," but it is not native. Does it matter if a law contains a mistake? Big questions 8. A state symbol does not protect a single acre by itself. Can a symbol still matter? How? 9. Missouri is one of the states where this butterfly still survives. Does that give Missourians a special responsibility? 10. If your class could pick any Missouri native as a state symbol, what would you pick, and how would you convince a legislator?
Ten slides, ready to paste into PowerPoint or Google Slides.
SLIDE DECK OUTLINE: A NEW INSECT FOR MISSOURI Slide 1: TITLE "A New Insect for Missouri?" Photo of the Regal Fritillary if you have one. Slide 2: MEET MISSOURI'S STATE INSECT The honeybee. Ask the class: what do you notice? What do you know about it? Slide 3: THE TWIST The honeybee is not from Missouri. It came from Europe with colonists in the 1600s, and 16 states use it as their insect. Slide 4: THE NOMINEE The Regal Fritillary (Speyeria idalia). Deep orange, silver-spangled, claimed by no other state. Slide 5: A VERY PICKY EATER Caterpillars eat only native violets. One brood a year. Caterpillars sleep through the winter in prairie grass. Slide 6: THE VANISHING PRAIRIE Missouri was once about one-third tallgrass prairie. More than 99% of America's tallgrass prairie is gone. Slide 7: THE UMBRELLA Protect enough prairie for this one butterfly and you shelter wild bees, grassland birds and wildflowers too. Slide 8: WHY MISSOURI It still flies on western Missouri's prairies after vanishing from most of its range. In 2024 it was proposed for federal protection. This is a butterfly Missouri can still help save. Slide 9: HOW A LAW CHANGES Sponsor, committee, House vote, Senate vote, governor's signature. State symbols are set in statute (RSMo 10.070). Slide 10: WHAT WE CAN DO Learn it. Write it. Send it. Our class letter goes to [legislator names], who represent us in Jefferson City.
One quick question per day of the unit.
EXIT TICKETS (one per day) 1. What is the ONLY food a Regal Fritillary caterpillar can eat, and why is that risky? ANSWER: Native violets (especially prairie violet). If violets disappear from a place, the butterfly disappears too; there is no backup food. 2. Finish the sentence: "An umbrella species is..." ANSWER: ...a species whose protection automatically shelters the other species that share its habitat. Protecting prairie for the regal also protects wild bees, grassland birds and wildflowers. 3. The honeybee is Missouri's state insect. Give one fact that makes it a strange choice for a symbol of Missouri's nature. ANSWER (any of): it is not native (introduced from Europe in the 1600s); it is essentially livestock, not wildlife; 16 states share it; it can compete with the wild bees that actually need help. 4. List the steps a bill takes to become a law in Missouri. ANSWER: A legislator sponsors and introduces it; committee review; passes the House; passes the Senate; the governor signs it. 5. (Bonus) A state symbol does not protect any land by itself. Give one reason it can still help a species. ANSWER (any of): it introduces millions of people to the species; it reaches kids through classrooms; it gives agencies, landowners and volunteers a shared banner for restoration work.
Tell families what the class is up to, and invite them in.
Dear Families, This week our class is learning about a remarkable Missouri neighbor: the Regal Fritillary, a big orange-and-silver butterfly that lives on tallgrass prairie and almost nowhere else. Its caterpillars eat only violets, it gets just one generation a year, and Missouri's prairies are among the places where it still survives. We are using the butterfly to study life cycles, prairie ecosystems, and how a bill becomes a law, because there is a citizens' campaign to make the Regal Fritillary Missouri's official state insect (our current state insect, the honeybee, actually came from Europe in the 1600s). As part of the unit, students will write persuasive letters to our district's state legislators. WAYS TO JOIN IN AT HOME - Play the quiz games with your student at the campaign's For Kids page (search "New MO Insect Now" or ask your student for the link). Ask them about their Bug Sticker Book. - Look for violets in your yard this spring, and consider leaving them be; they are baby butterfly food. - If your student is excited about it, the campaign's Take Action page has a letter any family can send. Questions? Just reach out. Thank you, [Teacher name]
The ready-to-send class letter to a legislator lives on the Take Action page, next to the lookup links for your district.
Plant a violet patch. Native violets in a school garden are real Regal Fritillary habitat, and a living lesson students walk past every day. Visit a prairie. Missouri has public tallgrass prairies, including Prairie State Park, where regals still fly in summer. Do cricket math. Count a snowy tree cricket's chirps for 13 seconds, add 40, and check it against the thermometer. Hold a design contest. Have students design the Regal Fritillary sticker, stamp, or license plate Missouri would get if the bill passed.
Field guides, free classroom resources, and education programs. Search the online field guide for "regal fritillary" for photos and range maps.
MDC.MO.GOV →
Prairie State Park in Barton County protects nearly 4,000 acres of tallgrass prairie, with ranger-led programs and bison to boot.
MOSTATEPARKS.COM →
The invertebrate conservation nonprofit behind much of the regal fritillary science, with pollinator habitat guides usable for schoolyard projects.
XERCES.ORG →
Protects original prairie remnants and runs the Grow Native! program, the best source for native violets and schoolyard planting guidance.
MOPRAIRIE.ORG →
Teach the unit, write the letters, and send them. Somewhere in Missouri is the classroom that gets this bill sponsored. It might as well be yours.