ELF Hunter Hunted Mitchell Elementary January 2016

Transcription

1 ELF Hunter Hunted Mitchell Elementary January 2016 Introduction Focus: Animals that hunt other animals for food (predators), and the animals that they hunt (prey), each have special adaptations that help them to survive the challenges of their particular roles. Opening Questions: What are some differences between predators and prey animals? What similarities do they share? Unlike carnivores who must be adapted to chase or otherwise trap their food, the herbivores challenge is how to get enough food while also avoiding attach. They also keep one another in check to maintain the balance of nature. In your introduction, you may also want to touch on some of the following points: Diet types of herbivore, carnivore, insectivore, and omnivore. Which are hunters/hunted? Ask students to think of examples of predators and some prey animals. (Are some animals both?) In a healthy ecosystem, there are more herbivores than carnivores, and prey animals usually have many offspring in litters to increase the chances that at least a few will survive. You might want to talk about the ideas of food chains and pyramids (diagrams in ELF box). Other Questions for Discussion What challenges must herbivores meet to survive? (Even though their food source is stationary and often abundant, their challenge is how to get enough of it while avoiding attack. Also, they have to spend most of their waking time eating.) How are herbivores adapted to escape predators? (Prey animals often have acute senses of hearing [large ears that rotate] and smell. Their eyes typically are set on either side of the head to provide a wide field of vision. They usually are quick, agile and alert. Some prey animals have developed other defenses, such as quills, playing dead or freezing. Herd behaviors also can help prey animals to elude predators.) What challenges do predators encounter? (They have to work harder to find and catch their food. Once caught, food may escape or fight back) What adaptations do predators have to catch their food? (Many predators have a well developed sense of smell, like the long snout of a wolf or fox. Predators eyes typically face forward to provide for 3D binocular vision. Wide mouths, sharp teeth and claws also help them to catch and eat prey. Predators can be fast, strong or stealthy.) Are predators bad because they eat other animals? What would happen if there were no predators of a type of prey animal? No prey for a predator? When predators and prey are in balance in an ecosystem, their habitat remains healthy and supports a broad range of plants and animals. Both predator and prey play important roles and act to limit one another in nature.

2 Introduction: Puppet Show or Felt Story Board ELF version of Little Red Riding Hood for the puppet show Rabbits and Foxes felt story board (Center 5). The felt story board requires at least two volunteers, one to narrate and one or two to work the felt board. Center 1: What s Can Specimens Tells Me? This activity gives your students a chance to look closely at examples of specific predators and prey animals, and to identify the visible features that help each animal find or catch its food or evade other animals that want to eat it. The students may not be able to see all of the methods the animals use, or they may not recognize some; the point is to have them do their own investigation and form questions to which they might like to find out the answers. Depending on the age and interests of your students and the amount of time you would like to spend, you can do this activity using a handful of specimens or every specimen in the case. Distribute the What Can Specimens Tell Me? chart and go over it with the students. Ask them to pay special attention to the physical properties of each of the specimens. Have the students fill in their charts as they look at the specimens. Discussion Questions: What weapons do these animals have to attack other animals? To defend themselves? Which animals look like they use speed as a weapon? Which ones look like they use stealth? Can animals frighten each other with their appearance? Which animals would scare you? Why? Are human beings predators? What physical characteristics help people defend themselves? OPTIONAL ADDITIONAL INFO: (we recommend doing this exercise, if at all, BEFORE pulling out the very very interesting specimen samples) Objectives: To identify survival adaptations specific to hunting animals (predators) and to hunted animals (prey), and to note adaptations common to both. Divide students into two small groups. Ask one group to study the photographs of prey animals (mounted on blue paper) and the other group to study the photographs of predators (mounted on brown paper). Ask each group to make a list of the adaptations exhibited by the animals they study. Students can write their list on a paper for easy reference or just share their ideas in a discussion. The adaptations should relate to the animal s role as a hunter or hunted animal. They can refer to books, including Animal Fact File to help them identify adaptations. The volunteer can roam between the two groups asking about particular features to help students identify key adaptations of hunters or hunted animals. For your convenience, the ELF box contains master lists, mounted on pink paper, which include some major adaptations; they are by no means comprehensive. ELF Intro/Concl Bin Puppets Scripts OR Center 5 Materials ELF Center 1 Bin Specimens from DNMS porcupine quills small blue shark mandible American alligator skull Coyote skull Great horned owl skull mountain lion skull brown bear claw praying mantis turtle shell case butterflies emine long tailed weasel tarantula (Bolivian blue leg) Squirrel (13 lined ground) Specimen Notes for Teacher Hand Lenses Copies of What Can Specimens Tell Me? for each student or laminated chart to work on together Thin erasable markers Hunter and Hunted photo cards Master list of predator/prey adaptations Who Eats Whom Handout (optional, 2 nd 4th) Kid Bits Predator picto story handout (optional, K 1)

3 Once the students lists are fairly complete, ask the hunter group to explain a listed adaptation, and then ask the hunted group to explain a counter adaptation. For example, the predator group might identify front facing eyes (binocular vision to tell the distance of their prey), and then the prey group might identify camouflage coloring as a counter adaptation to help an animal hide from keen vision. This is not an exact matching exercise the prey group might list side facing eyes for wide field of view as a counter adaptation. Let each student have a turn to state an adaptation and describe how it helps the animals to survive. Some mid food chain animals may exhibit both predator and prey adaptations (skunks, opossums, frilled lizards, etc.). Ask students why animals might have both sorts of characteristics: because a predator can itself become prey for a larger or stronger predator. Classroom Paper and markers Pencils for handout ELF Books Animal Fact File Fangs, Claws & Talons by Spada Predator: Animals with the Skill to Kill by Setford Discuss the notion of apex predators, food pyramids, food chains, and overlapping chains that form food webs. Apex, or top, predators are the biggest, fastest, most powerful predators that don t become a meal for another animal. Top predators include wolves, orcas, tigers, lions, grizzly and polar bears, bald eagles, and crocodiles. You may want to create a Venn diagram with the groups to depict similarities and differences among predators and prey. For younger students (K 1 st ), work as one group with the parent writing the lists (in words or pictures) based on suggestions of the students. Once both hunter and hunted lists are fairly complete, work with the group to match up the counter adaptations, or construct a counter adaptations list concurrently. Use photos in books to assist, as needed. If you have extra time, you might complete the Who Eats Whom? handout (2 nd 4 th answer key provided) or the Kid Bits Predators picto story (K 1) with the students.

4 Center 2: Getaway Skits Objective: To learn about a variety of animal hunting and escaping strategies. This is a performance center best suited to a large floor space. Read through the 5 getaway skit scripts before class (bobcat/hare; polar bear/seal/fish; hawk/blue jay/squirrel; wolves/moose; fox/mice). For example: Hawk circles in sky, looking down at the ground. Squirrel eats nuts not noticing Hawk until Blue Jays see it and start calling jay, jay. Squirrel runs up a tree. Let each group of students choose a skit. Then, assign each student in the group a role to play, and give each one the corresponding neck sign to wear (with the animal s name). As you read the skit, have the students act out the scenario. Some of the skits may call for too few or too many characters, so improvise to make each skit fit for your groups. For example, in the Bobcat and Hare you can assign extra hares. Alternatively, you can have the other 2 or 3 students be the audience. If there is an audience, you might review the skit with the student actors, and then ask them to perform the skit, without narration, while the audience guesses what is going on. The audience becomes the actors for a second skit. If you have older students or two parent volunteers, two sets of students can rehearse two different skits simultaneously and then perform them for one another during the rotation. In any event, you can do multiple skits, as time permits. Also, students can change the outcome of a skit, as they may desire. After each performance, discuss adaptations that are employed by the hunter/hunted animals in the skits. ELF Center 2 Bin Neck signs with animal photos ELF Book: Wolf vs. Elk by Meinking Polar Bear vs. Seal by Meinking Owl vs. Mouse by Meinking If you d like, you could have each group of students in a rotation practice just one skit several times, with every rotation of students doing a different skit. Then, as a closing for the unit, you could have each small group perform their skit, without narration, for the rest of the class. Let viewing classmates summarize the plot after each performance. Discuss the adaptations that are in use.

5 Center 3: Chain Reaction Objective: To appreciate student s roles as consumers and their dependence on living things for survival. Introduce students to the concept of the food chain. Emphasize that every living thing must get its food somewhere. Plants are producers, meaning that they can produce their own food from sunlight and from nutrients they take out of the soil. Animals are consumers, meaning they cannot create their own food instead they have to eat plants or other animals. Another special sub group is decomposers, organisms such as fungi or bacteria that obtain their energy be feeding on dead plants and animals. ELF Center 3 Bin Food Chain Sample Food Chain Mobile Worksheet String Tape Hole Punches Markers Colored Pencils Ask students to name a few of their favorite foods. Younger students may draw a picture of their favorite food on a piece of paper, while older students may write out the names. Next to each food item, ask the students to list its basic ingredients. For example, a sandwich could be broken down in to bread, peanut butter and jelly. A bowl of soup could be broken down in to chicken, noodles, carrots, and celery. For processed foods, ask the students to break those foods down further into the plants or animals they came from such as wheat, berries, or a cow. You may need to assist them to arrive at the answer. Have the students circle the plants and animals that make up their favorite foods. These become the links to their food chain. Next, distribute the Food Chain Mobile printed on cardstock paper. Explain that they will be making food chains based on the foods they just analyzed. They should draw a small picture of each plant or animal in their diet inside the appropriate shape on their worksheet. On the triangle shape, students should draw a common decomposer, such as bacteria, mushrooms or mold. (You may wish to brainstorm a short list of common decomposers as a group since students may not have named any decomposers in their diet earlier in the activity.) Have the students write their names on the human shape, and color the sun yellow. For older students, have the students label the living things (humans, plants and animals) producers, consumers. Next, have the students cut out the shapes from the Food Chain Mobile and punch holes where indicated. For younger students, volunteers may want to cut out the shapes and punch holes ahead of time (note the sun has detailed cutting be sure and tell the students they may simply cut a circle around the small cuts and it will still look like the sun!) Distribute string and have the students assemble their food chains into a long vertical mobile with the sun at the top, then me, animals, plants and finally decomposers. Make sure names are written on the back, and give to the teacher to place in the Friday Folders or to hang in the classrooms. Discussion questions while making the mobiles: What would happen if no animals ate plants? What role does the sun play on the food chain? Are people producers or consumers? Where do they fit into the food chain?

6 Center 4: Superhunter Objective: To create and describe a predator adapted to catch a specific prey. Pass out a card to each student describing a kind of prey and where it is found. The goal is to design a predator adapted to catching the particular prey on the card in the location described on the card. Older students can work independently or with a partner. With younger students, you may want to discuss helpful adaptations, either individually with each student, or with the group before they begin creating their predators. Ask the students to think about the special challenges of finding and catching the specific prey, and the senses, body type and skills that would help a predator do so. Then, the students each can draw their own (real or) imaginary predator hunting the prey. Encourage creativity as well as scientific thinking as they work ( e.g., would a bright purple and pink, giant, snapping, dragon faced wolf be able to approach prey undetected? Or, would more subtle coloration assist his survival?) Photos in books may help stir creative juices. When all are done, let students introduce their super predator and describe the adaptations it possesses that help it catch its special prey. ELF Center 4 Bin Superhunter cards Classroom Paper Crayons/mark ers Pencils ELF Books The Most Extreme Predators by Parkard Predator! By Brooks Land Predators of North America by Swan If time permits, students can do another drawing based on a different prey animal card. Older students could write a paragraph describing their super predator, with its particular survival adaptations, and relating its experience hunting the specific prey.

7 Center 5: Stories of Hunters and Hunted Rabbits and Foxes Story (also Option #2 for Introduction) Objective: This story with felt board visual aids will help students understand the shifting balance and interdependence of predators and their prey. This story can be used as an introduction/opening with the whole class, or as a fifth center. Either way, you will need at least 2 volunteers: one to narrate the Rabbits and Foxes story, and one or two others to put up and take down the felt pieces. The story will flow more smoothly with two assistants (one for rabbits and one for foxes). Make sure the narrator can see what is happening on the board. Volunteers need to read and become familiar with the Rabbits and Foxes story before presenting it to the students. Ask the students to listen and watch as you read the Rabbits and Foxes story aloud. Have one or two assistants (with their own copies of the script) follow the stage directions to portray the story through cut out characters on the felt board. Afterward, use the follow up questions that accompany the story to discuss the changes in the number of rabbits and foxes in relation to the seasons and available food supply for each. Tales of the Hunter or Hunted (Alternative for grades 2 4) Let the students look at books and each choose a predator or prey animal. Help each student to determine if the animal selected is hunter, hunted, or both (mid food chain). Then, ask the students to pretend to be the animal they have selected and let them write their own story about how it might feel to be that animal. How does the animal behave? What challenges does it face? What characteristics does the animal have to help it survive? How does it find food? How does it protect itself? They might write a day in the life story. If time permits, they can illustrate their stories and/or share them with the other students in the group. ELF Center 5 Bin Felt board Felt cutouts: 15 rabbits, 11 foxes, grass, trees and shrubs with removable foliage Quilt batting for snow Rabbits and Foxes text ELF Books Predators and Prey by Chinery Classroom Pencils Paper Crayons or markers for illustration

8 Wrap up Options Choose one of the following: 1. Read a Story A good choice for a final story is Butternut Hollow Pond, which delicately describes the hunter and hunted relationship ongoing throughout a day and night at a specific pond. The writing is elegant and the illustrations are vivid. You might also consider A Loon Alone or What s For Dinner. This would be a good time for a snack. 2. The Web of Life Students will understand the predator prey relationship and the interrelatedness of food webs and see how populations affect other populations. Give each participant an identification card and instruct them to hand the card around his/her neck. Included in the cards are: the sun, pants, prey (plant eaters/herbivores) and predators (flesh eaters/carnivores/insectivores). [sun, grasshopper, robin, grass, berry brush, hawk, quail, dandelion, mouse, worm, rabbit, deer, flea, meadowlark, owl, wheat, fox, weeds, coyote, mushrooms, microscopic bacteria] Have individuals identify energy (or food) sources. As each one is identified, pass a ball of yarn between the two people. For example: one student is a cow, and one is the grass. The cow will take the ball of yarn, hold onto one end of the string and pass the rest of the ball to the grass. The grass will hold onto the yarn and pass the rest of the ball to what it eats, in this case, the sun. BE sure that the sun is connected to all the plants. Once the string gets to the sun, cut it off and start again in another place. Continue building the web, making the relationships as complex as time allows. Define terms such as herbivore, carnivore, insectivore, decomposer, etc and include them in your web (all insectivores are specialized carnivores). Students can be in as many chains as you have time for, they do not have to be in all the chains. Discuss the nature and complexity of the food web that is formed. Note that it is not as complete or complex as most natural food webs but that it illustrates how living things are dependent upon one another. Biologists feel that more complex food webs are more stable than simple ones. After discussing the food web, the leader could ask what would happen if a species were removed from the web. Pick one. Those organisms affected directly could then pull on their strings and more organisms are affected. Have different students pull on their strings. When the sun pulls on it s string, everyone show be affected. Have some organisms drop their string (become extinct) and see who is affected. Additionally, the parent volunteer can represent nature and cause any type of problem to occur; for example: a wildfire could occur, but some birds were able to fly away and some types of trees reseed well after a fire. Discuss what would happen if all the predators were removed. Some species might exhaust their food supply and starve, but others will continue to reproduce only until the food supply becomes limiting or their interactions limit population size. 3. Food Chain Tag Students will act out the roles of animals and plants in a food chain, learning that a food chain works as a cycle and that all living things depend on one another to survive. Review the food chain chart with the students. Remind them that carnivores are animals that eat other animals, herbivores are animals that eat plants and ELF Conclusion Bin: Books Balls of Yarn (for Web of Life) Food Chain Chart Volunteer Snack?? What s For Dinner by Hauth Butternut Hollow Pond by Heinz A Loon Alone by Love

9 omnivores are animals that eat both plants and animals. Discuss the role these consumers play in the food chain. Explain to your students that they will be acting out the roles of carnivores, herbivores and plants in a game of food chain tag. Assign each of your students a role: about 3 students as carnivores, 7 students as herbivores and 15 students as plants. Give all the carnivore students one colored bandana each, another color for the herbivores and finally another different color for the plants. Remind the students what their prey is carnivores tag herbivores, and herbivores tag plants. Because carnivores decompose after they die and nourish the soil, plants tag carnivores. Remind the students that they must run away from their predators their lives are at stake! Once students have been tagged, they turn into whatever tagged them (have them trade bandanas). They must try to tag the prey that their new role eats. After a period of time, ask everyone to freeze and talk about what has happened to their original roles and why. IN come cases, their roles may have changed several times. (optional) After playing a few rounds of Food Chain Tag, select one or two students to play the role of human. Humans are omnivores and may tag anyone but no one may tag them. Also, the human has no hand signal. Everyone a human tags becomes another human. See how long it takes before all of the players have been changed in to humans. After playing the game, discuss the role of humans in the food chain, what happens when we overburden our resources and what we can do to keep them in balance. Books in ELF Book Box A Loon Alone, by Pamela Love (Conclusion) Animal Fact File by Hare (Center 1) Butternut Hollow Pond by Brian Heinz (Conclusion) Fangs, Claws & Talons Animal Predators by Ada Spada (Center 1) Land Predators of North America by Erin Swan (Center 4) Owl vs. Mouse by Meinking (Center 2) Polar Bear vs. Seal by Meinking (Center 2) Predator! by Bruce Brooks pictures of predators /prey lots of text (Center 4) Predator: Animals with Skill to Kill by Setford (Center 1) Predators and Prey by Michael Chinery (Center 5) The Most Extreme Predators by Packard (Center 4) What s for Dinner? Quirky Squirmy Poems by Hauth (Intro/Concl) Wolf vs. Elk by Meinking (Center 2) Materials For your classroom session you will need: 6 ELF Bins: Centers 1 5 and Intro/Conclusion Bin Bin from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science One felt board Puppet stage