Vocabulary
Note: During this lesson, students will read
passages of text on the activity sheets.
Students may be unfamiliar with some of the vocabulary presented in this
lesson. This is done intentionally, to
build reading skills and to spur additional conversations and discussion about
these words and their meanings.
Encourage your students to ask about unfamiliar words in the readings.
Procedure
I. Assessing Prior Knowledge
To introduce this
lesson, students should review what they have learned (from the previous osprey
lesson, Osprey
Journey) about the
migration patterns of Osprey. In
particular, children should recall that osprey migrate to the same place every
year. It would be nearly impossible to
document this phenomenon without the use of technological tools (satellite
tracking) and mathematical models (latitude and longitude coordinates). For additional review about the use of
coordinate systems as a way to identify specific locations on a map, the Search and
Rescue lesson
plan develops students’ understandings of coordinate grid systems, and ordered
pairs. If students did not have the
opportunity to view the Tracking
the Motion
Powerpoint slide show on animal tracking in the previous lesson, take this
opportunity to do so now.
II. Contextual Preparation
After this
introduction, students should be told that they will be comparing the flight
paths of two birds – Osprey mates X2 (female) and X3 (male). They will do so in two ways. First, students will discover the path of
the two osprey mates by graphing from the data table with coordinate systems to
see a visual representation of the migration paths of X2 and X3. Second, they will examine a more complete
scientific data set that has been represented in a table to see how it reveals
important information about the migrations of X2 and X3.
To help introduce
these concepts, show students the Pixel the Satellite movie entitled Separate
Vacations. The text for
the animation is included below.
(Pixel has a suitcase, which has one or two
stickers plastered on its side)
“1. Have you ever heard of
families who sometimes take separate vacations? 2. In this next lesson,
you’ll meet a family that takes separate vacations every year! 3.
An osprey family, that is.
4. Osprey are large, fish-eating
birds that spend the summer months in the U.S. and Canada, then migrate south
when the days get short and cool weather is on the way. 5.
An especially interesting thing about these birds is that the male and
female adults each fly to wintering grounds far far away from each other before
returning to the same nest the next year.
6. How will you discover where
they go? 7. Your teacher will help you with that part…in the mean time, I’ve
got some pictures to snap over Australia!
8. See you soo-oon!”
III. Student Activity
1. Begin by giving students copies of the Osprey Mate
Graphing Activity. Working
with a partner, students should outline the migration paths of both X2 and X3
as instructed on the activity sheet.
This process is similar to the one used in the Osprey
Journey lesson plan. To compare the migrational routes of the osprey mates, students will
plot X2’s and X3’s southern journey
in red, and their northern
journeys in blue. Students
should indicate the directions of the southern and northern migrations with
arrows for the migration route of each bird.
2. Beside each point, students should label the
date on which the data was gathered. As
they connect the dots to more easily recognize and study the flight path of the
bird, they should be reminded that this line does not necessarily represent the
actual path of the birds. All we know for sure is the location of the
points a particular time. How the bird
flew between the points is unknown.
3. After graphing the migration paths of the
osprey mates, students refer to the graphs to answer the Osprey Mate
Graphing Questions.
4. To learn more about the flight paths and
locations of the osprey mate migrations, students should be given a copy of the Scientific
Data Table with the more complete data set for the migration of osprey
mates X2 and X3. This particular
activity will focus on interpreting a data table to explain the migration
patterns of the birds in relation to date, latitude-longitude, and location. The
teacher may wish to read the introductory paragraphs aloud with the whole class
before students begin examining the table.
Referring to the Scientific
Data Table, students should answer the Scientific
Data Table Questions. A large
group discussion of student findings and responses to the questions will be
helpful in solidifying students’ understanding of Osprey migration.
5. Questions for Class Discussion and
Assessment
The following
questions are relevant to the work that students will do on both the Osprey Mate
Graphing Questions and Scientific
Data Table Questions. Teachers may
want to use these general questions below as either informal assessments of students’ understanding, or as prompts for
class discussions.
1.
During what dates did the Ospreys remain in the same nesting location?
6/14/96 to 8/26/96
2.
During what time period did the Ospreys being their migration
southward?
9/02/96 to 9/16/96
northward? 3/22/97 to 3/24/97
3.
Do the Ospreys follow the same migration path northward and
southward? no
4.
Where are the two southern homes of the Osprey? X2 –
Mazatlan, Mexico; X3 – Sinaloa, Mexico
5.
Over what states did the Osprey travel during their migrations? Oregon,
California, Texas
6.
What is different about the paths of the two birds? X2 flies along coastal California on the southern journey and X3 flies
more inland across Texas.
7.
Since Osprey X2 and X3 are mates what would you have expected their
migrations to look like? Were you
surprised in any way when comparing the data? Answers will vary.
8.
If you were to email a scientist studying these two birds what would you
want to ask her? Answers will vary.
9.
Do X2 and X3 migrate over the same period? Does it appear as though they travel similar distances? No,
female X2 leaves earlier and returns to the nest earlier than male X3. Also, the two birds travel different
distances: male X3 appears to travel farther.
10.
Why might X2 and X3 spend time apart if they are mates? When do you think the Ospreys have their
young? The birds traveled to their migrations routes before they mated. They have their young when they nest
together.
IV.
Assessment
In this lesson students will learn about the
migration pattern of Osprey mates.
Students should know how to plot locations on a map using latitude and
longitude data and extract meaningful information and understanding from data
tables. Referring to the data, students
should make inferences about why the Osprey mates migrate to separate
locations. The discussion/assessment
questions listed above may be used to measure student understanding of Osprey
migrations.
Learning Extensions for Authentic
Assessment
1. In previous lessons of this unit, the
concept of photoperiod was introduced as a means for animals to know when to
begin their migrations. Students could
explore this concept by going to the web site:
http://riemann.usno.navy.mil/AA/data/docs/RS_OneDay.html
Enter the dates
for when Osprey X2 and X3 begin their migrations either north or south, and
determine the photoperiod for each day.
Pick other dates during the migration, and compare the photoperiod in
the middle of the journey to the photoperiod(s) on either end of the journey.
2. Bonus Questions! Some students may wish to further study the
migratory paths of these two osprey mates.
The following questions may be used to guide their investigation.
a) How many miles did each of the birds have to
fly to get back home from Mexico to Oregon?
Check out a map with a scale!
Or, go to one of the following websites and enter the latitude and
longitude for each location to determine the exact distance between nests:
http://www.indo.com/distance/ or http://www.nau.edu/~cvm/latlongdist.html
b) Once you know how many miles it was, can you
determine roughly how many miles X2 and X3 had to fly each day in order to make
it back home in the amount of time they took?
Did X2 and X3 fly faster on the way to
Mexico, or the return back home to Oregon?
