Beaks Experiment

31 teachers like this lesson
Print Lesson

Objective

SWBAT analyze data to describe how birds meet their needs for food.

Big Idea

Time for an experiment! How many seeds can you pick up with tweezers? How about a wooden skewer, or a spoon? Record and analyze your data to understand why certain beaks work best for certain foods.

Field Guide (Instructional Notes)

In this lesson, we continue unpacking NGSS standard 1-LS1-1 Use materials to design a solution to a human problem mimicking how plants and/or animals use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs.  Wow!  That's a complicated standard!  When we break it down into a manageable progression of lessons, the first step is to define external parts.  Then, we focus on how external parts help animals survive.

In the first few lessons of this unit, we address how birds find food to survive.  First, I reviewed external parts and labeled external parts of birds in this lesson.  Next, in the previous lesson, we learned about beak adaptations that help birds find food based on their needs and habitat.  In today's lesson, we experiment with different beak-like materials and both record and analyze data. 

I found quite a few examples of this experiment on the web, so I took parts of them to meet the needs of first graders.  I also found this great video tutorial that walks you through the steps and materials.  Because this experiment has a lot of materials, you will want to prep them ahead of time.  As I get to steps in the experiment, I'll give you tips on getting prepared that will help your experiment run smoothly!

Groups of students will need:

  • A data recording sheet
  • A bowl of water with gummy bears or Swedish fish
  • A bowl with sunflower seeds or bird seed (shells or not, or a combination)
  • A bowl with cooked spaghetti noodles (these are "worms")
  • Tweezers, to mimic small seed eaters
  • A spoon, to mimic pelicans, spoonbills, and other water birds
  • Wooden skewers (or chopsticks), to mimic the saddle-bill stork
  • Small cups (I use little bathroom cups.)

I will place the bowls and "beaks" on plastic trays to keep all of the materials together.  Before the lesson, I make 7 trays, so that students can be broken into groups of 3-4.  Any more than 4, and they have trouble reaching around the tray.  Tip: You don't want to put Swedish fish in the water too soon, or they get gooey!