BACKGROUND:
Different birds require
different types of food, water, and shelter in order to live. There
are many different types of habitats for individual bird populations.
For example a forest will have several types of birds, but the coastal
ocean will have a totally different type of bird population. An area
that has abundant water, like rivers or ponds tends to have many species
of birds because birds must drink water. Birds also gather where
food is locally abundant and which includes fruiting or flowering plants,
garbage dumps, or short grasses.
The shape of a bird’s
beak is very important to how that bird eats. The design of the beak
will determine what that bird can eat.
PROCEDURE:
- There are many different ways in
which birds eat. Give the students some simple machines including
nutcrackers, tweezers, and sets of pliers. Instruct the students
to try and pick up the seed or bean and try to open it just with a “beak”
(or the tip of the simple machine.) This is difficult because it
takes a lot of power to break a seed. The pliers are the most accurate
analog to a beak.
- Students have made their worksheets
from the pre lab which they will now compare with the bird pictures provided.
Students have to determine what type of diet that particular bird has by
comparing beaks. Instruct students to write on their lab sheet what
the bird eats. If you have pictures around the room of birds, have
the students guess what they would eat.
Below is a summary of the birds:
Sparrow - seeds and insects
Blue Jay - eats insects, worms
Mallard Duck - omnivore, filter feeder
Burrowing Owl - small mammal (carnivore)
Hairy Woodpecker - insect
Quail - seed
Eagle - small mammal, small birds (carnivore)
Brown Pelican - fish
Emperor Penguin - fish
Crow - omnivore, seed and scavenger
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