Earth Day is April 22nd and it’s a holiday I can really get behind. I love any opportunity to celebrate our Mother Earth! My kids are really growing up fast and I am so proud to share with you how my daughter Ruby and her friend Cooper are trying to make a real difference in the world by supporting a threatened species.

Every year, National Geographic hosts a Geography Bee. This competition is designed to inspire and reward the curiosity of students across the globe for a chance to win college scholarships and the glory of being the National Geographic Bee Champion!

This year, they extended their Geography Bee into a Geography Challenge too, so middle schoolers were also allowed to compete to find a solution to problems facing a species and their migratory patterns. Ruby and Cooper chose the Monarch butterfly because we are in their direct migratory route between Mexico and Canada.

For their project, they created an ingenious clay morsel loaded with milkweed seed, the only food source for the Monarch larvae to eat. Unfortunately, people have been removing milkweed from their yards for years and now much of the food for this butterfly migration has disappeared.

The team led by their teacher, Mr. Wilcox, took 2nd overall and we were able to celebrate all their hard work with a fun day spent in the company of explorers from National Geographic! It was a fantastic moment.

As quilters, I know that you all do so much to reduce, reuse, and recycle! After all, quilters can’t help but use every last scrap. I want to know what you’re up to this Earth Day. What will you do in your neighborhood to help keep the balance on our planet?