NPS Photo / L. Law Extension ConceptsBelow are some extension ideas for use in the classroom or at home. These extension concepts are perfect for incorporating important themes from Katmai’s Fat Bear Week into your class. These ideas are designed for multiple grade levels and subject areas; some ideas build skills in critical thinking, and some are just fun. You are invited to use these and adapt them to your needs.Extension Concept: Healthy Ecosystems The bears of Katmai are just one part of a rich ecosystem that features animals, environmental factors, natural features, and many other species. The extension concepts below help students understand what makes an ecosystem healthy, compare differences between ecosystems, consider what impacts ecosystems, and more.
After watching either livestreaming or highlights on the Katmai bear cams, talk with students about what elements of the ecosystem can be seen in that footage. Then, discuss with your students what other parts of the ecosystem might be at work in Katmai that aren’t apparent on the camera. Use the Katmai National Park and Preserve website to find out more about the animals, environmental factors, natural features and even a full species list of animals identified at the park. Now, pose questions to your students about the impact on the environment and ecosystem of Katmai and the surrounding area if one of the hallmark species no longer was present. So, what would happen if the salmon didn’t run up Brooks River any longer? What would happen if the bears stopped returning to the area? What about if the water supply become contaminated or changed in quantity (got much higher or lower)? This could be done as a class discussion, group work or assigned research projects/papers.
After watching either livestreaming or highlights on the Katmai bear cams on explore.org, have students investigate what it means to have a label of “keystone species” and decide if anything they have seen in these videos would suggest any species qualify for that label in the Katmai National Park and Preserve area.
After watching either livestreaming or highlights on the Katmai bear cams, talk about one thing that isn’t seen in the ecosystem on these cams: humans (unless, of course, a group of people fishing happen to be seen at some point in the footage!). Discuss with your class what impact humans have on this ecosystem. Remember there are visitors there in person as well as people viewing online, like you and your class! Does the online viewership end up impacting the ecosystem? How? Further the conversation by talking about what best practices visitors can use when visiting the park to minimize their impact. Compare the class results to the principles of Leave No Trace.
After watching either livestreaming or highlights on the Katmai bear cams, talk with your students about how the nature of Katmai seen on the cameras compares to the area where you live. Do the students find the footage of Katmai to show a healthy ecosystem? Why or why not? Do the students find the area where they live to show a healthy ecosystem? Why or why not? Create some art work (drawings, dioramas, etc.) comparing the view of Katmai to the view the students have of the areas where they live.
Play “Salmon and Bears” (a variation on “Sharks and Minnows”) where one or two students are chosen to start as the bears and the rest of the students are the salmon. Salmon collect themselves on one side of the playing field with the bear(s) in the middle of the field. The goal of the salmon it to get “upstream” (to the other side of the field) without getting caught by the bear. Bears are interested in catching fish. Any salmon caught by bears (by getting tagged) become bears for the next round. Bears are also after the most fish and other bears are competition for the food they want, so there should be competition among the bears as well, so the true winner of the game is the bear that catches the most salmon (so the moderator should do their best to keep track of a rough score). Repeat rounds until all salmon have been caught. The second winner is the salmon who was able to pass their lineage along the longest by making the most successful runs back and forth up the river. The two winners of the round can start as the two bears for the next game or choose the next game played.
Extension Concept: Salmon Did you know that salmon are a critical part of Katmai's ecosystem? Explore Katmai beyond the bears with your students by learning about the incredible behaviors and journeys of these magnificent fish.
Project the Katmai bear cams, bringing up the Falls cam specifically, for the students to see. Have them try to count the number of salmon that you see try to jump up the falls over the course of sixty seconds. Compare the numbers throughout the class to come up with a reasonable count for that time period. Now, how could you use the number you counted to estimate the number of salmon jumping over the course of half an hour? One full hour? One day? How could this information be helpful? This count is something Park Rangers at Katmai National Park and Preserve actually do during their time at the Falls; why do you suppose they keep track of this?
Research what “escapement” means and how escapement numbers are calculated. Each area has a different technique they use based on technologies and manpower available, but all rely on a statistical interpretation of the data. Students should find out how escapement is calculated in the Bristol Bay area of Alaska as well as one other location to be assigned by the teacher. Information can be found on the Alaska Department of Fish and Game website as well as through the US Fish & Wildlife Service and several locations in the Pacific Northwest (Washington State in particular). This can either be done as a class assignment or as homework presented out during a future class session.
Have students look at the actual data collected by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game for the Naknek River escapement numbers specifically (these are the numbers for the salmon that could end up in Brooks Camp). There are several years of data available, but using the most recent data would be the most interesting to start this exploration. The data lends itself well to many graph types including a simple time series graph (either by day or by year), an ogive, or a combination ogive and regular line graph where they can see the daily escapement as well as the cumulative at the same time. These numbers are going to be much larger than they are used to using for most of the data, so using technology would probably be a wise decision.
Have students use the Alaska Department of Fish and Game escapement numbers to create a time series graph based on cumulative totals for as many years as are available from the ADFG website. Then, have students analyze this graph without prompting questions and see what they come up with. Then, have students analyze if this graph shows a general positive or negative slope and have them justify their response. Using points decided upon by the class, get an estimate for the rate of change (making the assumption we are looking at linear data). Then, have students make an estimate for the total escapement for next year, five years from now and ten years from now. After they have calculated this, ask them if the numbers make sense and if they find this estimation to be a reliable calculation (including the inevitable why or why not follow up!).
Have students use the Alaska Department of Fish and Game escapement numbers to look into the idea of correlation by using the escapement numbers from each day and the high temperature for that day, and having the students create a scatterplot. Discuss what the relationship looks like, if any exists. Then calculate the linear correlation coefficient and determine if this data seems to have a linear correlation.
Have students research art forms used by Alaska Native people indigenous to the Bristol Bay region (Yup’ik/Yupiit, Sugpiaq/Alutiiq, Dena’ina/Athabascan) and mirror that in creating artwork focusing on salmon.
Have students choose one of the life cycle stages of salmon and create a piece of art representing that stage of life for the fish. Then, group the art work into the different stages to either make complete life cycles or showcase them grouped in similar stages, but in progression of the life cycle of the salmon.
Using print and/or online resources, students will compare the importance of salmon in the Bristol Bay region of Alaska to other regions of Alaska or other regions of the United States (or in the world for that matter) to see if salmon is as important. Since salmon do travel a long ways up freshwater streams, their impact does go beyond coastal areas even though the greatest commercial impact certainly remains coastal where they are caught. So, are salmon important to interior regions of Alaska or other non-coastal regions? Do other coastal communities find salmon as important as the people of the Bristol Bay region of Alaska?
Have students look at the life cycle of a salmon to make sure everyone understands what these fish go through in their lifespan and to familiarize themselves with these fish in case they are unaware at all. Students will now investigate what it means to have a label of “keystone species” and if they feel that applies to salmon in the Bristol Bay area of Alaska. After learning the definition, students will use personal knowledge, knowledge gain from any other extensions done about salmon in other classes as well as print and/or online resources to inform their decision, backed up with empirical evidence.
The impact of salmon can be found well beyond the humans and animals of the area, many of which enjoy eating the salmon, in the trees! Students will do a case study on an article about how the nitrogen trees feed on is largely from salmon (40 to 80 percent within miles of salmon-rich rivers) and the salmon signature isotope is found in the Rocky Mountains. Good resources for a case study can be found online, including articles from Alaska Department of Fish and Game, KQED (a PBS affiliate), and Hakai magazine.
When the salmon “run” to their spawning grounds, their trips are fraught with peril. Create an obstacle course for students to participate in showing some of the hardships they face. First, salmon have to get through commercial fishing fleets and their nets. Then, salmon transition from the saltwater of the ocean to freshwater streams and undergo physiological transitions. Along the path to their spawning grounds, they may come across rapids filled with rocks and shallow water or even have to jump up a water fall, while swimming upstream the entire time. A variety of other animals find them to be prey, from eagles to wolves to bears among others. Sport fishermen also try to capture salmon along their journey.
Extension Concept: Brown Bears Share your students' wonder and fascination while learning more about Katmai's most iconic wildlife: brown bears! These charistmatic creatures are central to Katmai's diverse ecosystem.
Bring up the Katmai bear cams for the students to see and choose a cam with bears easily visible (usually either the Brooks Falls, Brooks Falls low, Riffles, Lower River or River Watch). Have students keep track of how many bears they see on the cam. For each bear, have the students write down things about the bear that they think would help them identify the bear if they were to see them again. Feel free to give as much or as little instructional help to the students in what things they might want to look for, including physical traits (scars, head/ear shape, length of legs), fishing techniques, whether or not they have cubs. After a set period of time, have the students share our what they identified and have them compare notes on what they identified. Biologists working at Katmai National Park and Preserve maintain records on all the bears they identify over the season and you can learn more about how they do that in their bear FAQ (question #23).
After watching the Katmai bear cams, students should notice bears have different techniques to catch fish. Either during class time or for an assignment outside of class, have students find as many different fishing techniques as they can and have them write out descriptions of each technique and come up with some descriptive name for each technique. Where are the bears when they are fishing? How do they go about catching the fish? How successful do the different types appear to be? You can see Katmai National Park and Preserve’s descriptions on the bear FAQ (question #5).
Make sure students can access the Bears of Brooks River book and have them find bears that are known to be from the same family. Have students list any traits that they find family members have in common as well as differences between them. Also have students write down anything they see about individual bears that might help them identify that bear if they were to see them on the Katmai bear cams. Use these observations from students to talk about the difference between inherited traits (head/ear/body size/shape, length of legs, fur color) with acquired traits (scars, for instance).
Have students count the number of breaths they take in a minute, and what their heart beats per minute are after resting and after exercise. Now, have them watch the Katmai bear cams and talk about what they think the numbers would be for those same measurements for the brown bears. Typically, respirations in bears are around 6 – 10 breaths per minute and have a heart rate of about 40 – 50 beats per minute. Bears are fattening up for their winter torpor, so talk with students about what might happen to those numbers once the bears are in their dens for the winter. Now, their breaths decrease to about one breath per minute and a heart rate of only 8 – 19 beats per minute! You can find more information about hibernation from the Katmai National Park and Preserve blog.
Have students keep track of the food they eat over the course of a day, writing down the calories of the food in particular. Have them total up how many calories they ate during the course of that day. Then, have the students watch the Katmai bear cams and talk about what the bears seem to be eating and how the calorie intake between humans and bears might be different. Knowing bears can eat more than 30 salmon per day and salmon contain about 4,500 calories, have the students work out the number of calories consumed by some brown bears at Katmai National Park and Preserve and compare to their own numbers. For more information, see the bear FAQ (questions #9 & #29).
Other Extension Concepts Katmai contains multitudes. Extension concepts don't stop at ecosystems, salmon, or bears. Explore the wide, wide world of Katmai through alternate concepts listed below.
Use the Katmai National Park social media posts for Fat Bear Week to focus on alliteration and using context clues to define words. Give students the text from different posts of your choice and have them highlight or underline the parts showing alliteration. Either identify or have students identify words that will need defining and use context clues to try to define those words. There are some tough ones in here! If they are stuck on any words and can’t figure them out, actual dictionaries are encouraged.
2021 Fat Bear Week Social Media Posts
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Last updated: August 21, 2025