Reading
Page 2
3682_Grade6_Reading
Read the selection and choose the best answer to each question.
Then fill in the answer on your answer document.
Monarchs on the Move
by Ariel Bleicher
1 For his 9th birthday a few years ago, Carter Steadman didn’t want
any presents. Instead, he asked for donations. He wanted to create
a way station for monarch butterflies. “It’s a place where monarchs
can stop and lay eggs,” explains Carter, now in sixth grade.
2 With his parents’ help, Carter cleared an area in his backyard in
Virginia. Next, he planted rows of flowering plants called milkweed—
monarchs’ main source of food. Then he waited for the butterflies to
come.
3 Every fall, millions of monarchs fly up to 4,800 kilometers
(3,000 miles) from Canada and the United States to Mexico. There,
the insects spend the winter clustered in trees in the mountains. In
the spring, their offspring travel back north, stopping along the way
to eat and reproduce.
4 This yearly migration is one of the most impressive in the animal
kingdom, but its future is uncertain. That’s why people like Carter
are joining scientists to help the butterflies before it’s too late.
Super Voyagers
5 Monarch butterflies live all over the world, from the Americas to
Australia and India. But none journey as far as the monarchs of
North America. “Their migration is awe-inspiring,” says Karen
Oberhauser, a monarch researcher at the University of Minnesota.
6 These butterflies leave Mexico in March. They breed as they migrate.
Females lay eggs across northern Mexico and the southern
United States beginning a new life cycle. The older butterflies die,
and their offspring continue north.
7 Over the summer, several more generations are born. In September,
the youngest butterflies begin the trek back to Mexico. Many return
to the same forests their great-great-grandparents visited!
8 But in recent years, fewer butterflies are surviving their trips. People
are killing milkweed plants to make room for crops and lawns. More
storms are toppling trees where monarchs spend the winter.