Butterflies find a place in classroom

By MARYANN MASLAN, Times-Herald staff writer

Alan Moore holds a tray containing about sixty Painted Lady butterfly chrysalis. About 100 butterflies will be released during the upcoming Vallejo Jazz Festival.
Photo: J.L. Sousa/Times-Herald

Former biologist Alan Moore has put butterflies in more than 400 classrooms in California at no cost over the past decade. And he'd like to do the same for Vallejo.

Moore, who recently moved to Vallejo, has provided workshops for teachers that include a kit with instructions on how to raise butterflies. He's being doing it for 10 years, since selling a landscaping business.

"It's something simple, it works and it's not too expensive (for me to do)," Moore said. "It's more than a science project. It gives kids a positive message, self-esteem and new ideas. It's pretty easy to do. Once a teacher picks it up, they can do it every year."

Moore's nonprofit organization is called Butterfly Gardeners Association.

He presented his program at the Vallejo City Unified School District board meeting last week and offered 30 kits to the district as a starter.

He said the program is primarily for students in kindergarten through middle school, but more advanced projects are available.

"It's a wonderful experience," said school board member JoAnne van der Bruggen.

Van der Bruggen said when she taught the fifth grade, a child in her class had a tree where butterflies would gather.

"(The parent) brought in a branch that had the chrysalis on it and the children loved it," van der Bruggen said.

The butterflies don't come with the kit, Moore said. The teacher must send in a coupon to receive the larvae.

Moore, who taught biology in New York, came to the West Coast in 1997 for an environmental conference and fell in love with California.

He began the butterfly program in Berkeley in 1997 with 2,000 children and the second year, 10,000 signed up, he said. The program has grown to 500 classrooms throughout the country.

Moore is also the new director of the Vallejo Performing Arts and Conference Center at 707 Marin St. The Butterfly Gardeners Association shares the Old Masonic Temple with Musicians and Fine Artists for World Peace.

Moore said he hopes to make the butterfly projects available to any class that is interested.

To reach his goal, Moore plans to hold benefit concerts in town and add a grant writer to his team of volunteers.

Moore will release butterflies at 2 p.m., Sunday, at the Vallejo Jazz Festival.

"We invite children to come and make a wish and to let it go (with the butterflies) and it will come true," Moore said.

For more information on the program, see the Web site www.butterflyspirit.org, or call 415-424-7238.

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