Butterfly Feeder
Put your eyes on butterflies!! Attract nature’s beauties to your backyard with a feast of flowers and nectar.
Fun Facts/Information:
Butterflies do not have mouths and taste with their feet. They drink food with a drinking straw apparatus called proboscis.
Although butterflies enjoy the sweet nectar from flowers, they need minerals to survive, too. Butterflies will sometimes sip from mud puddles to gather up minerals and salt, which is called "puddling".
Learning Objectives:
- Students will use household items to make an upcycled butterfly feeder.
Materials:
- Plastic condiment bottle with flip-top lid
- Cotton ball
- Rubber bands
- Yarn/string
- Flowers
- Water (1 Cup)
- White Sugar (1. 5 tablespoons)
Procedure:
- Clean the condiment bottle and remove labels. Tear off the flip-top portion of the lid from the base of the lid.
- Wrap a thick rubber band around the bottle near the base of the bottle and make sure that it is very tight and has a good hold of the bottle.
- Tie a piece of yarn or string to this rubber band on both sides of the bottle.
- Wrap 2-4 more rubber bands around the bottle spacing them apart from each other.
- Place a cotton ball through the hole of the lid so that a quarter of it is outside of the lid. Make sure the cotton ball is a tight fit.
- Collect flowers and place their stems under the rubber bands placed around the bottle. The flowers will help draw butterflies to the bottle.
- Make butterfly nectar by mixing 1 cup of water with 1.5 tablespoons of sugar. Boil this mixture on the stovetop or in the microwave until the sugar is fully dissolved and then let it cool completely.
- Add this nectar to the bottle and close the lid.
- Hang the butterfly feeder outside for the butterflies to enjoy.
Discussion Questions:
- What clues tell us that butterflies are getting something they need from the feeder?
- How might the color, smell, or shape of the feeder attract butterflies?
- What experiment could we design to test what attracts butterflies the most?
Extensions
- Take photos of all the butterflies eating from your feeder and try to identify the butterfly species of your flitter-flutter visitors.
- Design an experiment and test different feeder colors, locations, and sugar concentrations.
- Collect data and share with your teacher, friends and family!
Safety Considerations
- Use white sugar and water only. Other sweeteners can harm butterflies.
- Do not touch or taste the butterfly food.
- Always wash your hands after handling the feeder.
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