Procedures:

• By the end of this activity students will have developed an annual timeline or calendar of events for Dall sheep.
  
  
• Using a calendar or a monthly timeline drawn on the board, have the students brainstorm what they already know about the life cycle of Dall sheep. When do they breed? When do they migrate? When are lambs born? What do sheep do in the winter? When the timeline is complete, assess what the students still need to know to fill in the rest of the calendar. Have them make a list of questions they would like to have answered.
  
  
• Students may augment the information in the Dall Sheep Fact Sheet, and the Dall Sheep Life Cycle, with various resources in this unit, the library, or the Internet, ask students to research the answers to their questions about sheep life.
  
  
• After students have done the research, have them complete the annual timeline for all to share.

Extensions:
Students can explore other animal life cycles through a variety of comparison/contrast timelines and research papers. For example, how is the life cycle of Dall sheep similar to or different from that of caribou or moose? How are life cycles of large mammals different/similar to those of smaller mammals such as the fox or snowshoe hare? How are life cycles of land animals different than those of marine animals?

Suggested Assessment:
Ask students to describe the annual Dall sheep life cycle. Students could draw pictures, produce a computer movie, or produce a puppet show that depicts the life cycle.

Credit:
Adapted from Year of the Goose, Teach about Geese, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1988.