Module 3: Conservation

This final module is a culmination of the knowledge gained from the previous eight weeks. It adds more to the somber notes of environmental degradation and habitat loss and what we, as humans, must do to combat the losses nature experiences on a daily basis. At Birding for Beauty, we believe that it’s not too early for young children to learn about what their earth is going through—introducing small ways that they can help in their everyday lives.

Week 9 | Endangered Species

Lesson:

An endangered species is one that faces the possibility of extinction (when there are no more members of that certain species anywhere on Earth). Several species of birds have gone extinct, such as the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Labrador Duck, Great Auk, Passenger Pigeon, and more (Sibley xvi). Extinction is a natural process to allow for the diversity of life on Earth to continue developing and evolving, allowing for the growth of new species (“Extinction”). However, the extinctions of the bird species mentioned above were not natural. Rather, they were largely the result of hunting and other human influences. It is crucial to understand the role human society has played in the unnatural extinctions of so many species on the planet, not limited to birds. Scientists have documented five mass extinctions over the course of Earth’s recorded history, having been caused by several different factors each time. However, scientists ponder whether or not this new era of humans causing major environmental changes threatens to cause another mass extinction (“Extinction”).

It’s important that we don’t just focus on currently threatened or endangered species, however. Preventative measures—taking care of, protecting, and paying attention to species before they become endangered—are key. With that said, what can we do to combat our own environmental shadows? Form a discussion, asking students what they think they can do to reduce their own negative impacts on the climate and environment and protect all animals, both endangered and non-endangered.

Potential points to bring up during discussion:

Yards are small but meaningful green spaces that you can let grow out. Pollinators—such as hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies can make use of the plants that grow there. If your hard has tall trees, don’t cut them down so you can allow for owls, hawks, jays, crows, warblers, and more to stay in the branches. Dead trees are great for several species of woodpeckers.
Have bird feeders/baths up during the winter for non breeding populations to have a steady source of food and water.
Citizen science: there are several platforms for citizens to get engaged with science in their own communities. eBird is one of the largest and most well-known apps that allows citizens to upload bird checklists from the areas in which they bird. However, there is a discrepancy in birding hotspots. There are some locations that aren’t well birded, leading to skewed data. It is therefore crucial for everyone to pitch in, go birding in their neighborhoods, towns, etc. Everyone who contributes to eBird is helping science in some way.
Don’t use herbicides or pesticides in or around your house, as these substances are often harmful and deadly to wildlife.
Be an advocate and teach others what you’ve learned! Education and the spread of knowledge is what brings tangible change and process.

Activity:

Students will put together their own posters with facts and conservation information regarding an endangered/threatened bird species of their choice.

Students will need to do some research on their chosen/assigned species. If they do not have access to books, articles, or a device, educators can pre-print/bring books to class and assign species to ensure everyone has a species they can research.

The posters should include facts about the bird (range, size, appearance, food, etc) as well as illustrations. Be colorful and creative! The posters should also have conservation efforts outlined.

With permission, these posters can be hung up around school to spread awareness in their own communities.

Activity Materials:

Pens/pencils/markers
Either printer/construction paper or, better, poster board
Scissors
Glue
Optional: field guides for fact-checking
Students may want to have access to online resources for their research
- Good websites: All About Birds, Department of Natural Resources, National Wildlife Federation, National Geographic, Encyclopedia Britannica

Week 10 | The Dangers of Migration

Lesson:

Ask the students if they know what migration is and can give a definition.
This lesson is meant to be in the form of an organic discussion.

Some questions to ask:

Why do birds migrate?
Which birds come to mind when you think of migration?
How long do you think birds migrate for?
When do you think birds migrate? / How often do you think birds migrate?

Points for educator to make if not brought up in discussion:

Migration is defined as the “seasonal movement of animals from one region to another” (Oxford English Dictionary “Migration”).
Roughly half of all bird species globally migrate in some fashion, though the distance traveled and location vary significantly (Runwal).
In North America, birds who migrate move south for the winter; this is their non-breeding range. Migration happens when the seasons change from summer into fall and food availability drops, driving the birds to warmer regions (“The Basics of Bird Migration”). The migration of birds back to their summer (breeding) homes happens in spring, when the weather warms again.
There are several types of migrations: Short-distance, medium-distance, and long-distance.
- Short-distance migration involves small movements, sometimes only a few hundred feet or a couple of miles, or higher/lower elevations on a mountain (“The Basics of Bird Migration”).
- Medium-distance migration often spans a couple hundred miles (“The Basics of Bird Migration”).
- Long-distance migration typically involves the crossing of national borders, such as the commonly known treks from Canada or northern United States to South American countries (“The Basics of Bird Migration”). Long-distance migration sometimes involves time spent overseas.
Medium- and long-distance migrants face much danger on their journeys. They face all sorts of natural dangers, such as predation, harsh weather, and lack of sustenance. However, they also must battle human-related hazards, such as colliding with skyscraper windows, wind turbines, cars, and the reality of habitat loss. They become distracted from the stars that guide them by the light pollution of big cities and fly into subpar rest stops, often with less opportunities for food because of the urban settings (Devokaitis).
Mortality rates of birds soar during spring and fall due to migration hazards.

What can we do about this?
- Turn off lights at night to help birds not be disoriented during their migration.
- Keep cats indoors, as they are songbirds’ main predator and reason for population decline (Devokaitis).
- Invest in Window Strike Prevention—window covers that deter birds from crashing into the glass

Activity:

This activity is meant to offer a glimpse into the difficult life of a medium-distance or long-distance migrant. It includes a plethora of real circumstances that birds could potentially run into with characteristic ups and downs.

Each student will roll their die and will move that many steps forward to the designated slide. They will follow their instructions until they roll a number that gets them to the last slide or beyond. If they roll exactly to the last slide, they will have to do what’s written on that slide. If they roll a number that gets them past the last task, they are done and have survived the migration.

In this activity, there is no clear winner. However, migrants want to reach their destination with all of their body parts intact and in a timely manner. Thus, a timer will be set for 15 minutes. If a student does not make it to the end by the end of 15 minutes, their migration is declared unsuccessful (perhaps they got run off course by light pollution, etc). However, we encourage each student to spend the allotted time on each of the activities, as the simulation works best this way.

Activity Materials:

Print out these slides on individual sheets of paper. Arrange in a large loop around a classroom or outdoor space for optimal conditions.
Enough dice for a whole class. If this is not possible, students can participate in this activity in small groups by sharing dice.
Spoons and bouncy balls. Lay these beside stations 3 and 8. Make sure there are enough for several participants to go at once.
10 small red objects of the same size and shape. Place spread out around the room/outdoor space. These locations should be hidden but not so well that they’re entirely invisible.

Week 11 | Balance in the Natural World

Lesson:

Nature depends on balance, diversity, and evolution to thrive. As such, there is nothing linear about nature. For example, students may have learned about food chains in past years. However, chains are only a small fraction of the larger interactions at hand: food webs—interconnected and endlessly complex. The reality is that food chains do not account for the fact that no animals are confined to one specific source of food, and, in turn, all prey have multiple plausible predators.

Also, it is important to note that the lines between predator and prey can be complicated and blurred. For instance, some bird species are both predator and prey, depending on who’s with them in their habitat. Additionally, scavengers are a category not often spoken about, yet they are crucial in any ecosystem. They’re essentially the cleaners of the natural world, picking on bones and leftovers from the meals of predators. They help with the next stage of the cycle of life: decomposition. In habitats, there must be a balance between predator, prey, and scavengers.

Furthermore, keystone species are another aspect of a balance in the natural world. Some woodpeckers—usually larger ones—are keystone species, as the holes they peck in wood provide homes for other species that come after them (BirdNote). Without woodpeckers, many other species would struggle to find nesting locations.

Moreover, symbiosis is a key example of the importance of balance, as symbiosis is a unique evolutionary adaptation between two species that results in a relationship that usually benefits both parties. Pollinators and the plants they pollinate engage in mutualistic symbiosis, as the pollinators—hummingbirds, bees, butterflies, etc—receive food in the form of nectar, while the plants get pollinated, allowed to continue their own species in different locations as the pollen falls off the bodies of the pollinators during travel.

Finally, extinction, as we’ve previously established, is the culmination of balance, diversity, and evolution. Extinction, when a result of natural factors, allows for the growth and development of new species and the evolution of the planet.

Ultimately, nature doesn’t survive linearly or with the dominance of one group over all the rest. Instead, it relies on a balanced distribution of power, differentiation, and the possibility of change, much like human microcosms.

Activity:

In today’s activity, students will gather around a web made out of yard on the floor. (It can either resemble an actual spider web or be a tangle of yard on the floor.) Then, place these labels out of order along the web. Have each student stand/sit beside a label.

Pass the ball to a student. Have them be able to explain their species—appearance, predator vs. prey (or both!), where they get their source of energy/sustenance (and, perhaps, if others get energy from them), etc. If it’s a non-animal, ask students to identify how this plant is used in nature, where it is found, etc. Once a student finishes, ask them to pass the ball to a classmate, someone not directly adjacent to them. This student will attempt to answer the same questions outlined above while also theorizing how their organism connects to the previous student’s organism—if possible, how their organism connects to all the organisms previously said that they can remember.

Continue the process outlined in the previous paragraph until everyone has gone. This is an exercise of critical thinking, as students will probably not be familiar with all the labels. However, before the game starts, they can be shown pictures from field guides or other materials, and they can make educated guesses based on size, location, etc.

Activity Materials:

Yarn or string
Ball/something to pass around
The labels linked above, printed out

Week 12 FINALE | Why Do Birds Matter?

Lesson:

My birding mentor Dr. Bob Sargent once said, “birds are the barometer for the health of the natural world.” At first, I was confused about what he meant. (I didn’t even know what a barometer was—it’s a tool to measure the pressure in the atmosphere.) Now, I think I understand.

Birds are one of the only classes in the animal kingdom that can be readily observed and documented in nearly every city and town of the world. This is why, for many people, birding is not a hobby—it’s a lifestyle. Birds, especially here in the Atlanta metro area, are everywhere and all around us. Thus, for scientists, they are useful indicators of the extent to which climate change and other harms to nature are really affecting the world. When certain bird populations go into decline, it is indicative of a major natural crisis.

For example, some decades ago, there was a pesticide called DDT that was widely used in the United States. DDT affected major predatory birds, especially Osprey and Bald Eagles, because the fish they caught had DDT inside them. After ingesting this really harmful pesticide, their eggs would develop dangerously thin shells, often cracking in the nest or not even hatching to begin with. Eventually, after mass suffering and decline of these birds, the United States put a ban on DDT in the 1970s (“The Case of DDT”), a testament to the ubiquitous power of birds.

Ultimately, it is important that we study birds—in addition to all other animals—in order to better understand the state of our own planet.

Activity:

In today’s activity, the final activity of the class, students will receive paper and other art materials. They should reflect, through writing and art, what they’ve learned in this class in the form of a letter. They should address the letter to their future self, the year they enter high school. In this letter, they should try to answer/think through some of the questions listed below.

What are some new words you learned in this class?
Why does diversity matter in the natural world?
What kind of diversity do you see in the natural world? Think about habitat, adaptation, appearance, evolution, extinction, balance, and more.
Why is balance important in the natural world?
Think about what you know about evolution/change in the natural world.
What can you do to help nature in your own community?
How has your thinking changed over the course of this class?
What will you teach others?
Why does any of this study matter? How does studying these fields—ornithology, biology, environmental conservation, and more—inform your everyday lives?