BirdSleuth for Homeschools

I have some money-saving news I hope you'll like: February might be the shortest month of the year, but it holds the best discounts ever offered for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's BirdSleuth curriculum. If you've considered ordering a BirdSleuth kit, now is the time: we're offering $10 off, free shipping, and a special "end of winter" bonus! The curriculum offers you months of engaging science and math teaching and learning, brought to you by the birds in your neighborhood.  Indeed, the curriculum can help you launch a multi-year exploration (and new hobby!) with your child.



Science Investigator's Kit for Homeschoolers:

$10 off and FREE shipping. Plus, as a special bonus, you will receive a FREE participation in the 2011 "Project FeederWatch" season (you'll get two years instead of one).

To order:   Order online using code "FEB10" or call us at (607) 254-2489. With this code, you will get $10 off and free shipping. We must receive your order by February 28 for these special discounts to apply.

Need more information? Please check this site.

As always, if you have any questions at all about the BirdSleuth curriculum and how it is used in a homeschool setting, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Fee, project director

BirdSleuth

Cornell Lab of Ornithology

My friends Jessie and Chris (not to mention the Cornell Lab's videographers and editors) have been hard at work producing episodes for the "Inside Birding" series.  These fantastic videos make birding even more accessible by providing people of all ages step-by-step "how to" for learning to identify and watch birds.

The episodes released are:
Size and Shape
Color Pattern
Behavior
Habitat

I recommend that you watch the videos in order.  They really build on one another. This series might change the way you look at birds and birding!  Enjoy!

Best,

Jennifer Fee
BirdSleuth Project Leader

GBBC also has a page for kids, where your kids can learn more about their local birds, do online jigsaw puzzles, download coloring pages, and listen to birds. 

Someone recently told me that her kids were curious about how fast birds fly.  Good question; it got me thinking, too! For example, I've heard that falcons travel really fast in a dive, but does that count as flying?  Well, I did a little research on the topic, and here are some thoughts and resources from reputable sources.

While it doesn't give speeds for different birds, this site does talk in general about the energetics of flight and mentioned sustained flight versus short bursts (i.e. in a chase). It seems that just like humans walk and run, birds do, too!  It's interesting to think of the different energetic needs to birds, and how they might differ seasonally (for example, during the nesting season or when a bird is migrating or surviving a cold winter).

Here's a very informative page from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. This site also speaks in more general terms and gives migration speed ranges for general bird types (for example, songbirds travel 10-30mph and waterfowl are somewhat faster at 30-50mph).


So, from my little bit of research, I'd conclude that bird speeds do vary within a species as well as between species. The different conditions at which the measurements have been taken (i.e some might be measuring "top speed" versus "travelling speed" versus "migration speed") might make comparisons between different websites difficult. 

In the BirdSleuth curriculum, we recommend that educators track "I wonder" questions like "How fast do birds fly?"  This particular question requires research, can generate great discussion, and in the end leads to new questions and directions. This exploration is much of the excitement of science!

What questions do your kids have about birds? How could they go about answering them? What new directions might be explored?  What science content can you teach through these "I wonders"?

Happy exploring!
Jennifer

As I've learned more about birds through developing the BirdSleuth curriculum, I simply notice birds more, and they've become more a part of my everyday life.  For example, I like changing seasons (I think it would be hard for me to live in a place that didn't have a fall with red-orange-yellow leaves, a blustery winter, a spring green, and a baking-hot summer).  This fall, I've noticed the leaves changing as I usually do, but this year, the seasonal change has also been marked by me noticing the change in birds and their behavior.

Some birds are flocking... others are flying south.  The species I see out the window are different than they were two months ago. There's a different sound to fall--the singing of the summer is gone, and now I am noticing little "chips" and loud geese honks. Ever since I heard this radio boadcast, I can't stop noticing geese flying in a "V" and noticing the big flocks of blackbirds and starlings who are not flying in neat alphabet-shapes.

Birds provide a neat way to connect kids to science and other subjects.  Birds can be used to teach about everything from seasonal change to physics (flight, sound, color) to math (bird counts, population changes) to biology (habitat, conservation, diversity) to...hmmm... it seems endless!  Can you give any of the content you're teaching a "bird's eye view"? 

One thing that I miss this time of year is birds singing, espcially on my walk into work.  Lately, all I hear is geese honking loudly as they go south!  Birds' ability to sing is one of the things I really appreciate about them.  In fact, our first BirdSleuth module (Most Wanted Birds) starts by kids listening to a bird "dawn chorus" trying to figure out how many species there are.  Bird song is a great clue to bird ID.  But the dawn chorus is a bit of a mystery:  Scientists have often wondered, "why do birds sing so much in the morning?"


My colleague, Karl Berg, a PhD candidate in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University, likes waking up early... and it's a good thing! With his wife, Karl took to the tropical forests of Ecuador to find out why so many birds sing at dawn. Karl and his wife spent several months making over 100 hours of recordings synchronized with twilight to find out if the birds had a singing schedule (also called “bio-acoustical” monitoring). Back at Florida International University, Karl identified 130 bird species from the recordings and logged the times of 25,000 songs.

From his field work, Karl discovered that tropical birds begin to sing only when they see light. Big-eyed birds that foraged high in the forest canopy sang earlier while late-rising birds have small eyes and inhabit the dark, dense underbrush. I never even thought about birds having big or little eyes!

As the destruction of tropical forests continue, which affects the quality and quantity of forest light, Karl's research and the continued bio-acoustical monitoring of birds may help us understand more clearly how our interactions with the Earth affect the behaviors and health of other species.
 
It's all related, isn't it!?!
 
See the full article that inspired me to think about this at:  http://www.epa.gov/ncer/events/news/2009/01_08_09_feature.html
 
Happy Honking!
Jen

My collegues at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have been working on an educational online video series called "Inside Birding."  These videos take people step-by-step through learning to identify birds, and they're good for kids or adults.  Whether you are new to birdwatching and want to get better, or an experienced birder ready to take on new bird ID challenges, or simply someone who wants to learn a little more about the birds you notice in your neighborhood, I think you will learn something!

In this episode, my friends Chris and Jessie teach you the most fundamental skill for identifying birds – recognizing them by size and shape. Join them "in the field" to practice these techniques on common birds and learn how to distinguish similar species such as Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers.

Five years ago, I knew very little about identifying birds-- but using tips like the ones Jessie and Chris recommend (and a bit of practice) has made me more able to identify the birds I see.  Better yet... I simply NOTICE birds more.  And that's really the fun part for me!

I hope you'll enjoy this video, and maybe choose to get outside today and see what birds you see!

Happy birding,
Jen