Summary Stations of activities on birds: paper airplanes to understand flight, feather and nest studies. Science content Biology: Features, Adaptations of Living Things (K, 1, 3, 7) Biology: Classification of Living Things, Biodiversity (1, 3) Activities in this lesson Bird nest study Feather study Paper airplanes Materials Materials in the activities Procedure Divide the students into three groups, and have them rotate through three stations, 1. Bird nest study - look closely at different nests 2. Feather study - look closely at feathers (of different kinds if possible) 3. Flight and wing shape - fly paper airplanes and modify them to understand how wing shape determines the flight of birds Review the stations. Discuss how birds fly (a novel concept to us): Bird push air to make them move. Air seems like nothing to us as we are heavy. Push air into your face - feel the particles that make it up. Watch slow motion of birds flying https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qThIyj1mLfs. During eagle flapping: when a light bird pushes against air particles, they are small enough that the push makes them move. During humming bird: complex wing beats allows some bird to hover. During herons: the shape of birds' wings are different on the downstroke and upstroke. During seagulls: they adjust their wing and tail feathers to change their flight direction. Depending on the wing shape, and which way they push, they make amazing manouvers in the air. Wrap: Birds are living dinosaurs. What we understand as dinosaurs are actually the first birds. Not all of the dinosaurian close relatives of birds could fly, but those that could flew in a range of different ways, suggesting early evolutionary experiments of flight, with birds being the most successful of those experiments. (from https://www.birdlife.org/news/2021/12/21/its-official-birds-are-literal….) Grades taught Gr 4 Gr 5
