Background

Objectives

Students will role-play migration from one food source to another to learn how environmental changes affect plants and animals.

Materials

6 hula hoops
Plates
Paring knife

Season

Any season

Group Size

Whole class

California State
Content Standards

L.S. 3.d

bird_ms

In this activity, students learn about migration. There are two main types of migration. Some birds may fly south for the winter and north again for the summer. They travel to the place where they can get food and shelter. Another type of migration is altitude. Many animals will spend the summer in a higher altitude, and travel to a lower place when the weather starts becoming colder. They also do this to find food and shelter. In the bay area, it is the opposite. Some animals may spend the winter in the chaparral when it is lush, and migrate to lower areas during the summer. This garden activity brings up migration as well as natural environmental changes. You can discuss the human impact on the environment by cutting down trees or changing wetlands for development.

Vocabulary

Migration: movements of varied distances made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather.
Environment: all living and non-living things that occur naturally in an area and how those things interact.
Habitat: an area that is lived in by a particular species

Attention Grabber

We are going to play a game today that requires all of you to turn into little birds. What do you think birds need to survive? Food, water, and a place to help them build a nest- like a forest. Think of a place that gets cold and snowy during the winter. Do you think you’d be able to find what you need? No, so you would have to fly south where it is warmer, like Texas. (Then, you can discuss a local chaparral. It’s very hot and dry in the summer, so animals don’t like it there. But, when it rains, it is green and warm enough that lots of animals like to live up there.)

Do you think an area where a bird lives can change? What are some things that can affect their homes? We are going to play a game to watch how these changes can affect you little birdies.

Garden Activity

Set up 6 different hula-hoops in the garden. Each hula-hoop represents a habitat.
Make a line to represent a separation between the northern (the student’s starting home) and southern migratory habitats (where the students will “travel”).

hula_hoop_habitats

In each hula-hoop, put a plate with a different food from the garden. Cut the food into bite-size pieces. Good foods to consider: carrots, rhubarb, and radish. To begin, each plate should have only ONE TYPE of food.
Have students pretend to turn into an animal and “migrate” to the hula-hoop that has their favorite food. (For safety, have students walk). Have students wait until you give them notice to migrate by saying, “MIGRATE!”
Each time you say, “MIGRATE!”, they will travel from the north to the south or vice versa. This means the students MUST go across the equator every time the teacher says, “Migrate!”
Each time they migrate, they can choose one piece of food and eat it. Record how many students are at each hula-hoop habitat for each migration.
After students travel from the north to south, the teacher can mix up the food to show how it will affect the population in each habitat. For example, switch the carrot and rhubarb plates and see what happens. Mix some radish and rhubarb on a plate and observe what happens. Explain how something like floods or a forest fire influenced their food changing. Completely remove all food from one habitat and combine it with another habitat.
Track the results throughout the migrations using a white board. Be sure to include birds that didn’t find something to eat.
Discuss afterwards that environments can change from floods, fire, or drought. This can affect the food supply, which then will affect the animal’s populations. (Giving an example from your area is a great idea. For example, talking about California wildfires and the effect they have plants, animals, and habitats.) The animals that like the food in an area will stay and have babies. Other animals will find another place to live where they can find food.

Wrap Up

Review the whiteboard and follow the migration of the students. Ask to see the hands of the students that enjoyed the food that was left and decided to stay there. Ask them if they would like to stay in a place that had their favorite food with their families. Do they think animals are like that? What if that place no longer had their favorite food, would they move to another place? What if an area with their favorite food was destroyed by a wildfire or flood?

What's Next?

Have students plant native plants to help create habitat for animals.
Have students create “Stop Wildfires” posters to put up around the school. These posters should include ways to prevent fires from starting.