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Teacher’s Guide: Episode 2

Migration

In the opening segment, Junior Naturalist Patrice looks at how some animals migrate to find food or a place to hibernate, while others migrate to mate, give birth, or raise their young. Next she joins Senior Naturalist Dave Erler and helps him band some birds so they can be tracked as they migrate. In the third segment, we take a closer look at how three raptors, the broad-winged hawk, the red-tailed hawk and the snowy owl migrate. Finally, Sara and Davis help Iain McCleod with his annual hawk count.
  • Program Objectives

Students will:

  1. Analyze how adaptations
    help organisms survive.
  2. Identify migration as an behavioral adaptation.
  3. List reasons for migration.
  4. Give examples of migration.
  5. Recognize the distinct characteristics of raptors.
  6. Describe how some raptors migrate to survive.
  • Pre-Viewing Activities

Have students brainstorm reasons why an animal might leave its habitat.

  • Post-Viewing Activities
  1. Have students make a list of regional animals and research whether they are resident or migrant.
  2. Have students work individually or in small groups. Have each group make three lists of animals. One for animals that they know migrate, one for animals that they think migrate, and one for animals that they think don’t migrate. Have the groups report their lists back to the class and make a large chart of the lists. Discuss the lists as a group and have the students research animals that they have any questions about.
  3. Depending on the season, have students keep a journal of animal activity in their area. They can note things like increasing bird songs, flocks of birds or animal sightings.
  4. Have students research their area and find out what animals migrate. You can contact your local branch of the Audubon Society to find out more about birds or you can contact your state fish and game or wildlife department for information about local wildlife.
  • Hands On: Move Along

Move Along

In this experiment, students will learn how Bernoulli’s Principle and wing structure helps birds fly.
  • Map of North America or sequential list of states
  • Dice
  • Game pieces
  • List of migration “dangers” (for the teacher)
  • Recording sheet
  • Tell the students that they are migrating birds and will be traveling from Canada to Florida (you can choose any path you like)
  • Distribute a single die and map to each student or group of students. Have the students place their game piece at the starting point and then roll the die and “migrate” the number of states that they roll. Have the students stand up as they reach Florida and record the number of rolls it took them to get there.
  • Repeat the process three or four more times, but these times introduce a migration “danger” that eliminates the migrator. For example, after the first roll a migration danger might be that all “birds” that landed in Maryland have died because their usual resting place is now a parking lot, or that birds that flew to New Jersey hit a high rise building. Record how many “birds” make it safely to Florida as you add these conditions.

(Thanks to Doug Hoff, Third Grade Teacher, Mast Way Elementary School, Lee, NH for this activity.)

  • Hands On 2: Wind Beneath My Wings

Wind Beneath My Wings

  • paper strips

Have the students place a strip of paper just under their bottom lip and gently blow over the paper. The paper should lift.

Here’s the Physics!

This happens because of Bernoulli’s Principle which states that as the speed of a moving gas or liquid increases, the pressure decreases. When the students blew over the paper, they decreased the pressure on the top of the paper and the higher pressure on the underside of the paper lifted it up. When birds and planes fly, the curved upper-side of their wings causes air to move faster than the air on the underside of their wings. So the air pressure on the top is lower than the air pressure on the bottom!

Vocabulary

  • Adaptation
  • Lichen
  • Hibernate
  • Neotropics
  • Migration
  • Thermals
  • Raptor
Migration Teacher’s Guide Quiz

Additional Resources

Books

They Swim the Seas :
The Mystery of Animal Migrationby Seymour Simon, illustrated by Elsa Warnick
ISBN: 015292888X
Publisher: Browndeer Press
Publication Date: September 1998
Reading Level: Ages 8-12
The migration of aquatic plants and animals.

Hawk Highway in the Sky: Watching Raptor Migrationby Caroline Arnold, photographs by Robert Kruidenier
ISBN: 0152008683
Publisher: Gulliver Books
Publication Date: April 1997
Reading Level: Ages 8-12
Documents the work of scientists and volunteers as they track hawk migration at Nevada’s Goshute Mountains.

Flight of the Golden Plover:The Amazing Migration Between Hawaii and Alaskaby Debbie S. Miller, illustrated by Daniel Van Zyle
ISBN: 0882404741
Publisher: Alaska Northwest Books
Publication Date: June 1996
Reading Level: Ages 8-12
A look at the amazing transoceanic migration of the Pacific golden plover.

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