Science November 4th, 2019

Amelia Wills
Bird Adaptation Stations

Stage 1: Desired Results

General Animal Life Cycle:
Learning Describe the appearances and life cycles of some common animals, and identify their adaptations to
Outcome(s) different environments.
4. Identify the food needs of at least one animal from each of the following groups: mammals, birds, fish,
Specific reptiles, amphibians, insects; and describe changes in how each animal obtains food through different
Learning stages of its life.
Outcome(s) 7. Recognize adaptations of a young animal to its environment, and identify changes in its relationship to
its environment as it goes through life
Learning 1. Students will identify why birds need beak adaptations.
Objective(s) 2. Students will explore the various food needs of birds.

Stage 2: Assessment Evidence

Summative Formative
• • Observation, prediction sheets
Assessment Assessment

Stage 3: Learning Experience

Tech Resources • “Beaks!”, tweezers, pliers, eyedroppers,
• N/A spoons, nets, beans, elastics in dirt,
to Do to Bring sunflower seeds, & cut up straws.
Time: 60 mins Content/Description Notes
Introduction
• Get students to review what they believe an adaptation is (group
discussion)
7 mins
• Read about a few birds from the “Beaks!” book.
• Explain that each beak is different because it is an adaptation to that
bird’s environment and food needs
Instructions
• Show students the prediction sheet on the SMART board and explain
7 mins
what they will be writing in the boxes. Briefly explain activity.
• Go around to each station and explain what their task is.
Stations
• Students will be divided into groups of four and have approximately
8 mins at each station.
• Students Task is to figure out which bird beak (tool) works best for
each type of food.
• Bird beaks are pliers (parrot or macaw), tweezers (robin),
41 mins eyedropper (hummingbird), spoon (spoonbill), and a net (duck)
• Food options are worms (elastics buried in dirt), seeds (sunflower
seeds), bugs (black beans), nectar (water), and pond plants (straws
in water).
• Each “food” is on a different table with one of each beak.
• Students will first predict what will work best, experiment and then
right the actual results in sheet.

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Science November 4th, 2019
Amelia Wills
Bird Adaptation Stations

Conclusion
• Students will ensure all boxes are filled out in their prediction sheet
5 mins
• Come back together as class and go over what students believed
worked best for each food.
• Have students guess what tool each bird represented.

This lesson ended up taking much longer than anticipated. If I were to do this again,
I would have students fill out all of the hypothesis boxes before having them to go
to the stations. Students got too excited to try everything out, they often forgot to
Reflection
do the prediction box before. This makes a huge mess! Make sure there is time to
clean up after! Students loved this hands-on learning experience; I would definitely
use this again in the future!

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