Classroom Activities
Unit Launch & Introduction to Birds
Students will have just completed the flight unit, so they will be familiar with the forces of flight. Teachers should briefly review the history of flight and activate students’ prior knowledge from How People Learned to Fly by Fran Hodgkins. I would suggest rereading pages 5-8 of the text to begin a discussion about birds. Here are some questions teachers could ask to begin the classroom discussion.
- Why do you think people were fascinated by birds?
- What about birds makes them unique? Why?
- What do you think people were trying to figure out by observing birds?
- Thinking about our last unit, what parts of the birds were the most important to understand so that people could learn how to fly?
After activating prior knowledge, teachers will then begin introducing the new unit content by introducing vocabulary. On Day 1, teachers should introduce the following words: (1) adapt, (2) adaptation, (3) survive, (4) habitat, and (5) environment. Making sure to include a visual representation of each word, teachers should lead students through a vocabulary routine that encourages conversation and allows students to use the word in appropriate contexts. I would make sure to connect each word to something that is familiar to the students, i.e. describing their own environment in the classroom or their neighborhood.
Conclude the unit launch with introducing images of birds and having students describe the environment and adaptations they see in each bird. Make sure to have students use the vocabulary that has just been introduced.
What Does it Mean to Survive?
As mentioned earlier, there are four key tenets to animal survival: (1) acquiring food and water, (2) acquiring shelter, (3) physical safety, and (4) reproduction. Student friendly language can sound something like, “What do animals need to survive? They need to stay safe, have food and water, shelter, and to have/protect their babies.”
Consider incorporating a physical movement for each aspect of survival (i.e. hands above head in the shape of a house for shelter, pretending to rock a baby for having and protecting babies).
Teachers should lead a class discussion asking students what they already know about how birds fulfill each tenet of survival. This can be done in whole group instruction or small groups of students. Students can also complete the beginning steps of a KWL (Know, Want to Learn, Learned) chart to organize their thoughts and have something to return to at the end of the unit after they have completed all the learning activities.
With these tenets in mind, students will begin to look at images and artwork of birds with these aspects in mind in the coming days.
Becoming Observers
Today is the introduction of artists and scientists as observers. Begin by introducing (or reintroducing based on your own units) observe as an additional vocabulary word. Talk with students about how people learned about the world around them by looking and watching closely, especially before the invention of the microscope or photography. To learn, people had to observe. Students will become observers themselves.
Richard Brookes’ Woodpecker and Two Birds (1760)46
Figure 3. Richard Brookes’ Woodpecker and Two Birds, 1760
Begin with Richard Brookes’ Woodpecker and Two Birds from 1760 (Fig. 3). Before displaying the image, ask students to imagine it is 1760, well before the camera and photography. People wanted to learn about the world and the animals around them. How would they go about doing that? Encourage students to use the word observe in their discussions with each other. Display the image and ask students what they see. Push further critical thinking by asking students what they cannot see. What would they need to better understand the depicted birds?
After students discuss what they notice and observe, ask students to compare and contrast the depicted birds. What do the birds have in common? What is the same? How are they different? Why do you think that is? Do you think these birds eat the same things? Why or why not? Further, push students to think about and discuss how observers in 1760 would have learned these things about the birds they were drawing. What kinds of things would they include to help others learn about the birds?
Robert Havell & John James Audubon’s Ivory-billed woodpecker (1829)47
Figure 4. Robert Havell and John James Audubon, Ivory-billed woodpecker, 1829.
The next image, drawn by John James Audubon and colored by Robert Havell (Fig. 4), should be shown next to Brookes’ image for students to see the similarities and differences over the next 60 years of nature drawings. Invite students to name what they see again. Questions that teachers can ask follow:
- What have Audubon and Havell done differently than Brookes in the first image?
- Would this image be more or less helpful than the first? Why?
- What new or different information can we learn about the woodpecker? How do you know?
If time permits, students can discuss the different purposes of the images. What are the authors trying to do in each image? What do they want you to know and to learn about woodpeckers? What adaptations are they attempting to show the viewer?
How can we learn from art?
Today will challenge students to look closely at art to determine the adaptations that artists want the viewer (us) to know about the birds they are painting or drawing. Teachers will do this by using flamingos. I encourage you to use a photograph of a flamingo in its natural habitat after showing students artwork so students can begin to see and understand that artists pick and choose what they want you to notice about their subject.
The first image I would suggest using would be James Forbes’ “The Flamingo” from approximately 1770.48 Invite students to say what they see. Push students to notice the environment that Forbes has included and ask students why they think he did that. Further, push students to notice the long neck and legs of the flamingo. What adaptations are shown in this image? How do those adaptations help flamingos to survive?
Next, show Audubon’s “American Flamingo.”49 What is the same? What is different? What does Audubon show that Forbes does not? Based on these two images, students should determine that Forbes and Audubon want the viewer to notice that a flamingo’s neck is an important adaptation that helps them to survive. Their beak is also an important adaptation for them to eat.
An extension activity for this day could be watching a video of flamingos in their natural habitat. I would not suggest watching a video about flamingo adaptations or an “all about flamingos” type of video because we want to encourage students to draw conclusions about adaptations based on what they see and not what they are told.
Practice
Students will repeat the previous day’s process again with James Bruce’s Bee Cuckoo50 and John James Audubon’s Yellow-billed Cuckoo.51 Students should notice that artists and natural historians were becoming interested in the habitat and behaviors of the birds they were observing. I would suggest looking up the way that your local birds have been portrayed in art to make an even stronger connection to students’ prior knowledge.
Teacher can lead a classroom discussion about why it is important to know more about the birds we are observing. Why is it important to know more than just the adaptation of the bird? How can the adaptations give us clues to where the bird lives and its behavior?
Close Observation
If weather and your school permits, I would encourage you to take students outside and have them closely observe birds. Make sure they only observe and do not attempt to interact with the birds, as that will not lead to an accurate observation of a bird’s adaptations in the natural habitat. Students should notice the shape of a birds’ beak, its feathers, the way the bird walks (or hops!), and the way it flies. All these observations give us clues to the way that a bird survives in its environment. Students can journal their findings and share with a partner at the end of the observation period.
Putting It All Together
After students have trained their eye to look for adaptations both in art and in nature, teachers should show students artworks of birds that students may know nothing about. John James Audubon’s Birds of America is a great place to start looking for images because of the breadth of his work. He took care to include the habitat of many of the birds in his artworks, providing students many entry points to discuss avian adaptations and how they help birds survive in their unique environments.
For an additional challenge, incorporate earlier artists that did not include the environment in their works so that students can critically think about where the bird would live based on their body alone.
Culminating Task
At the end of the unit, students will have learned about bird adaptations both scientifically and artistically. They will have analyzed artworks to look for avian adaptations. While writing about what they learned can and probably should be included as a part of the culminating task, I encourage teachers to empower students to become nature artists themselves. Students will pick a bird they have observed or studied to paint or draw, making sure to highlight their adaptations. Students should include the habitat of their subject in their image to show they understand how adaptations and environment work together. For example, a flamingo should not be pictured in a desert because its adaptations require it to be around water.
Additional Tasks
In the spirit of multimodal learning, teachers are encouraged to incorporate a tactile experience into this unit. For example, students can gather or teachers can source feathers for students to feel and discuss how the size, shape, and texture of the feathers tell us where a bird lives and how they travel.
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