Jeremy Viles, a resource conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, translated the impact pollinators can have into the language of children at a recent program at the Lake City Public Library.

Viles handed out pictures of pizza crust and toppings, having the 30 or so kids attending the program design their preferred pie.

Then Viles asked them a question.

“How much pizza would we have if we did not have pollinators?” he asked them.

And then, one by one, Viles removed toppings that rely on pollinators – peppers, onions, tomato sauce, pineapples. The children were left with crust, cheese and meat.

The iconic orange and black Monarch butterfly is one of those key pollinators, Viles told the students. And their numbers are in a serious decline, he said. 

Read more in the July 4 edition.