Getting Started Discuss This BEFORE Handing Anything Out

Birds of a Feather

Time: 35-55 minutes

Materials

Getting Started – discuss this BEFORE handing anything out

Ask the students the following questions and discuss the answers:

• How do different animals eat their food?

Students will probably talk about their pets (dogs, cats, hamsters, horses, fish) and how some use their mouth, while others might use their paws to hold their food to eat. Some students will probably mention that birds use their beaks.

• What is adaptation?

An adaptation is any physical or behavioral change that helps an organism survive in its environment. Adaptations can be related to how an organism gathers food and eats, how it protects itself from predators and the environment, how it builds its home, or other factors that help it survive.

• Can you think of different examples of adaptation?

Call on students to name different kinds of birds and ask whether all birds have the same types of beaks and eat the same kinds of foods. You may wish to show a variety of images of birds, such as songbirds (robins, warblers, orioles), shore birds (pelicans, flamingos, duck), or birds of prey (eagles, hawks, owls). Ask students why they think different birds have different shaped beaks. Take special note of the shape of their beak.

Go over the following vocabulary words:

• Organism: Any living thing
• Habitat: The specific place or environment in which a plant or animal lives
• Specie: A group of organisms that share common characteristics and are able to successfully reproduce

Directions

1. Separate students into groups of 4-5 and group them together. Moving desks may work best.
2. Give each group a different “food” type. Each station represents a different “environment”. Stations should be arranged so there is equal access to the food for four –five students at a time.

1. Tell students that they are going to find out what it is like to “eat like a bird.” Pass out one cup to each student and explain this is for collecting “food.” Pass out the “beaks” so that each student has one. The “beaks” are spoons, tweezers, small binder clips and tongs.

1. Tell the students that they will have one minute to “eat” as much food as they can with their beak type. They may use the beak in any manner (grasping, scooping, spearing), but let the students discover for themselves which method is most effective. However, they should use the beak to gather food items one at a time, or at least at a rate that reasonably mimics the natural environment. In other words, spoons should not be used to scoop large piles of seeds (because seeds do not occur in large piles in nature; even bird feeders distribute seeds moderately). Remind students that they should not “feed” aggressively and they should refrain from pushing and shoving other students.

1. Start the timer and have students gather as much food as they can for one minute, placing it in their cups. At the end of one minute, they should count how many food items they collected.

1. Have students rotate through all the food stations using the same beak type, recording their results for each different food type.

1. After the groups have rotated through all the stations, students will trade beaks so they have a beak they have not used before and repeat the experiment a second time as a different “bird.” Repeat the experiment until each student has tried all the different beak types and all the food stations.

NOTE: if it is a short visit, only have each student try two beak types.

Discussion

1. Tally students’ results in a table on the board (they should be similar). Ask about features of each beak that made some more suitable for a type of food than others. If results differ significantly, talk about what might have caused that. In particular, make sure discrepancies were related to actual beak adaptations and not simply experimental error, like students intentionally or accidentally misusing the beaks.
2. Is any beak type the best for all places where birds live?

No, different beaks were better in some places and worse in others. For example, pelicans live over water and have a pouched beak for scooping fish. Woodpeckers live in the forest and have very hard, sharp beaks for pecking through tree bark. These can be related to spoons and tweezers, respectively.

1. What happens to birds that can’t pick up food easily in the place where they live?

It will not have enough to eat and won’t survive to reproduce.

1. What happens to birds that can pick up food easily in an environment?

They will probably live and have children that have the same physical characteristics as them.

1. A snowshoe rabbit lives in places where there is snow. How does white fur help it to survive?

Because the rabbit blends in with the snow, other animals might not see it, and it helps the rabbit survive better.

1. Why might your fingers be an adaptation to the place where you live?

Fingers help us grab objects easily, and this helps us build shelter and eat food, which helps us survive better in our environment.