Field Trips
- Grade Level:
- Lower Elementary: Pre-Kindergarten through Second Grade
- Subject:
- Science
- State Standards:
- Strand 2.2: Living Things and Their Habitats
Standard 2.2.2 Plan and carry out an investigation
Standard 2.2.3 Develop and use a model
Standard 2.2.4 Design a solution
Essential Question: What parts help plants and animals survive in the desert?
Utah Science with Engineering Education Standards:
Strand 2.2: LIVING THINGS AND THEIR HABITATS Living things (plants and animals, including humans) need water, air, and resources from the land to survive and live in habitats that provide these necessities. The physical characteristics of plants and animals reflect the habitat in which they live. Animals also have modified behaviors that help them survive, grow, and meet their needs. Humans sometimes mimic plant and animal adaptations to survive in their environment.
Standard 2.2.2 Plan and carry out an investigation of the structure and function of plant and animal parts in different habitats. Emphasize how different plants and animals have different structures to survive in their habitat.
Standard 2.2.3 Develop and use a model that mimics the function of an animal dispersing seeds or pollinating plants.
Standard 2.2.4 Design a solution to a human problem by mimicking the structure and function of plants and/or animals and how they use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs.
Background
Habitats are the places where living things survive and reproduce. Habitats have unique weather, plants, and animals. Examples of habitats include the desert, ocean, and forest habitats. Living things have characteristics to help them survive in their habitat. These characteristics include things like the size, color, and shape of their ears, seeds, and fur.
Plants sprout from seeds, grow, and produce more seeds. Plants need sun, soil (and minerals), and water to make their own food and grow. Insects, hummingbirds, and bats seeking nectar move pollen from one flower to another and pollinate flowers. Coniferous trees and some other flowers rely on wind to distribute pollen.
Seeds are an adaptation that helps plants disperse and germinate effectively. Seeds have a tough outer coating to protect it from the elements, a plant embryo, and a small food supply to help the young plant develop. If all seeds from every plant dropped straight down and sprouted, the area would become overcrowded, and individual plants could not spread their genes to larger areas. Seed dispersal allows a plant’s offspring to spread and not compete for essential resources.
Mechanisms for seed dispersal fall into four broad categories: wind dispersal, water dispersal, external “hitchhikers”, and internal “hitchhikers”. Wind-dispersed seeds are often light and have a large surface area or cotton-like “puff” to help them catch the wind and travel. Cottonwood “puffs” and maple “helicopters” are two common wind-dispersed seeds. Water-dispersed seeds often have a seed coat that is light and porous to increase buoyancy and help the seed float on waves or currents. For example, the outer husk of a coconut is very light and helps it float in the ocean. “Hitchhiker” seeds rely on animals for dispersal. External hitchhikers often have hooks, spines, or sticky substances to help them attach to an animal as it brushes by the parent plant. After a while, the seed will fall, sometimes miles from the parent plant. Instead of relying on animals to brush against them, plants with internal hitchhiker seeds encourage animals to eat their seeds by enclosing them in a nutritious, good-tasting fruit. While the animal digests the outer fruit, the seeds remain untouched. When the animal eliminates its solid waste, it drops the seeds away from the parent plant, along with a pile of natural fertilizer to help them grow.
Camouflage is a way of blending into an environment. Effective camouflage hides the animal in plain sight. Camouflage is often thought of as green blotches, but more often the color and pattern of an animal’s fur or skin reflects the environment the animal lives. For example in the desert, many animals are brown to blend into the brownish-red sand and rocks.
Birds use their beaks or bills for many things, including eating, grooming, feeding young, manipulating objects, fighting, or courting other birds. Beaks differ in size and shape. Some species of birds also have nasal holes in their beaks. Much like teeth, beaks are diverse and well-adapted to a bird’s environment and food choice. Seed eaters, like sparrows and cardinals, have short, thick conical bills for cracking seeds. Birds of prey, like hawks and eagles, have sharp, curved bills for tearing meat. Woodpeckers have long, chisel-like bills for boring into wood to eat insects. Hummingbird bills are long and slender for probing flowers for nectar. Birds like herons and kingfishers have spear-like bills adapted for fishing. Insect eaters, such as warblers, have thin, tweezer like pointed bills.
The great blue heron is the largest heron in North America, widespread because of its variable diet, though it is often found near water sources. Their diet includes mostly fish, though they may eat frogs, salamanders, turtles, snakes, insects, rodents, birds, and more. They use their long beaks to grab their food, but sometimes they will also use it to spear their prey.
Canyon wrens are agile birds that scale cliff faces or other rocky places in search of insects and spiders. Their long, slender beaks are useful for probing into crevices with surgical precision. They are not known to drink water, most likely getting the water they need from the insects they eat.
The long, needle-like beaks of hummingbirds can reach far into flowers. They then use their long tongue to lap up the nectar inside the flower. The sizes of flowers a species will visit are closely tied to the shape and length of the birds' beaks, and beak shapes vary greatly across different hummingbird species. Hummingbirds will also pick insects or spiders off of plants to get protein and other nutrients.
Bats are small, flying mammals that are mostly nocturnal. Unlike bird wings, which are specially adapted arm bones, bat wings are specially adapted hands with a membrane connecting the “fingers”. Bats are the only mammal capable of sustained flight. 70% of bats species, including all the bats in Utah, eat insects. Bats are nocturnal animals. They sleep during the day in shelters, such as cracks in the rocks or tree cavities, this enables them to hide from predators while they are asleep and vulnerable.
Another adaptation of most bats is echolocation. While bats have good eyesight, they use echolocation which helps them navigate and find food in the dark. Echolocation is based on the principle of an echo. An echo is created when sound waves bounce off an object and return to an animal’s ears. Humans can create echoes by yelling against a canyon wall. Bats are constantly creating echoes by sending out ultrasonic pulses through their noses and mouths. These pulses can be as fast as 500 per second and are too high-pitched for most humans to hear. These sound waves bounce off both insects and other features in the environment (trees, rocks, etc.). When the bats hear these echoes, they determine the location of objects around them. Bats are constantly “scanning” their environment through echolocation. Once they recognize an insect, they increase how often they chirp to gather more detail about the location of the insect. If a chirp bounces off an obstacle, they know to avoid it while flying.
Procedure
Habitat Survival
Essential Question: how do the adaptations an animal has tell us about where it lives?
Materials: Over and Under the Canyon (Kate Messner); animal adaptation slideshow; “forest”, “desert”, and “river” signs; plain paper.
Procedure:
1) Discuss with students that a “habitat” is a place in nature where plants and animals live. Teach students the habitat song/dance (“Food, water, shelter, space; a habitat is a wonderful place!”) Talk about how food, water, shelter, and space are the things animals need to survive. On the field trip, they will learn about the desert habitat around Moab and parts living things have to help them survive here. (2-3 Min)
2) Tell students you are going to read a book about the desert. Ask them to pay special attention to how the desert looks and feels. Read Over and Under the Canyon. When finished, ask if the pictures remind students of Moab. (5-7 min)
3) Write “Desert” on the board and invite students to help make a list of all the characteristics (or things they notice) of the desert habitat in the book. Encourage students to think about their experiences outside and discuss similarities to the habitats in the book. Make sure you list key desert characteristics: dry, hot days, cold nights, spread out plants, sandy, rocky. (3-5 min)
4) Discuss whether the desert seems like an easy or hard place to live. Review what animals need to survive? Ask if students noticed things about the desert that might make it harder for animals to survive. Explain that desert animals have behaviors and structures to help them. Name some examples, like coloring helps some animals hide, or rabbits’ large ears help lose heat. Write “adaptations” on the board. Tell students that animals that live in other habitats may have different adaptations to help them survive. Explain the two other important habitats near Moab: rivers and forests (the La Sal mountains). Ask students to list a few characteristics of those habitats. (3-5 min)
5) Tell students they are going to play a game to guess which habitat an animal lives in by hearing about its adaptations. Place forest, river, and desert signs in different corners of the classroom. Tell students you will introduce an animal on a slideshow, one adaptation or body part at a time. Their job is to walk to the sign for the habitat where they think each animal lives. Remind students to think for themselves, not follow their friends. Give progressively easier clues until everyone is standing in the correct habitat. Reveal the animal’s home, if you haven’t already, and discuss. (8-10 min)
6) If time, allow students to draw a picture of an animal the group discussed and label its adaptations. Encourage students to share their drawings. (5 min)
7) Tell students on the field trip, they will examine adaptations that help animals and plants survive in the desert. Go over expectations and the items students need for the field trip. (3-5 min)
Flying Away
Essential Question: How do the structures of a seed help it travel?
Materials: clipboard; marker; copies of blank seed graph; wind-blown seeds (cottonwood puffs – enough for all students); hitchhikers (cockleburs - enough for all students); how seeds spread poster; velcro pictures of seeds; stopwatch; examples of seeds, coconut.
Procedure:
1) Sit under a cottonwood tree. Ask students if plants have adaptations as well as animals. Discuss how the tree is going to change over the next few months, such as growing leaves and seeds. Ask students what plants need to grow? Ask students to discuss with a partner what would happen if all the thousands of seeds the cottonwood tree produced dropped in one place. Encourage students to curl into a small ball in the center of the blanket and pretend to grow into tall trees by stretching out their arms and “widen their trunk” by spreading out their feet. Ask if they have enough space, water, sunlight, etc. Next, allow students to spread out and repeat. Return to the group and tell students all plants need to be able to spread their seeds so new plants can grow. (5 min)
2) Show students two seeds: cottonwood and cocklebur. Encourage them to examine each seed’s size, shape, color, weight, and parts. Discuss what students notice about the seeds and what questions they have about the seeds. Tell students you wonder, “How these seeds travel farthest.” To investigate this, students will conduct two investigations. Encourage students to look at the parts/structures on the seeds to make an educated guess about how the seeds will best travel. (5 min)
3) Start with a test of how seeds travel in the wind. Have students line up shoulder to shoulder (if windy, students should turn their backs to the wind). Hand each student a cottonwood seed. Students should close their hands so it can’t blow away but not to squeeze or roll it. Place a cocklebur seed in their other hand. When everyone has their seeds, students should open their hands. Students should follow the seed traveling the farthest and freeze when you say stop or when their seed touches the ground. Time students for up to 15 seconds. On non-windy days, students can create wind by blowing on their seed. Have students pick up their seeds. Once everyone is back at the starting line, graph which seeds traveled farthest in the wind. (3-5min)
4) Test how well seeds hitchhike on animals. Students should stick both seeds on their clothing next to each other. Turn students into bunnies and have them jump around for 15 seconds. Remind them to pay attention to which seeds stays on them the longest. Graph which seeds hitchhiked the longest. (3-5 min)
5) Return to the blanket. Remind students scientists often repeat experiments many times to make sure their results are accurate. Compare past bar graphs to analyze student data on different days. Ask students to discuss with a partner why we got these results. Discuss why the cottonwood is “better” at traveling in the wind and why the cocklebur is “better” at traveling on animals. If students do not mention them, point out structures on the seeds that are good adaptations for traveling in these different ways. (2-3 min)
6) Explain you have a seed with different structures, which uses its adaptations to travel in a different habitat. Show students the coconut and discuss its adaptations. Pass around the husk and discuss its boat-like shape. Invite students to discuss with a partner how the coconut might travel. Discuss if traveling on the water would be a good adaptation for traveling in the desert. (3-5 min)
7) Introduce a fourth method of travel, hitchhiking inside an animal. Describe the structures that encourage animals to eat those seeds. Give students paper examples of each type of seed. Invite students to examine the structures that help each seed travel and attach their paper seed to the How Seeds Spread poster. Discuss patterns. Examine other seeds and the structures that provide clues to how they travel. (2-3 min)
8) If time, let students walk around and look for different seeds. Discuss seeds they observe and which seed type they most often see.
Where is my Dinner?
Essential Question: How do bats’ ears help them survive in the desert?
Materials: Nightsong (Berk/Long); Pictures of local bats with descriptions; bat equivalent human ears; blindfold; tape measure; echolocation poster.
Procedure:
1) Ask students if they ever had to find their way in the dark. For example: waking up in the middle of the night and trying to find something without bumping into the walls. What senses did they use when it was too dark to see? Read students the book Nightsong. Discuss the characteristics of bats the book mentions, i/e fly at night, what they eat. Discuss how bats living in Utah eat mostly M and M’s (moths and mosquitos). (5-7 min)
2) Ask students how the bat in the book found their way in the world. Use the “echolocation” poster to explain how echolocation works and how bats use it to find bugs to eat and to avoid flying into objects. Discuss how the bat in the book found food using echolocation. Tell students you are going to turn them into bats, but to be good bats, they need to go to bat school. As a group, shout at the rock and listen for the echo. Ask if bat’s large ears help them. Have students hold their hands to their ears and make an echo again. Which echo could students hear better? Examine the bat in the book and look at the size of its ears. Use the human equivalent ears to show how big our ears would be if our heads were the equivalent size. Discuss the second part of the word is “location.”. Tell students other animals use echolocation as well when seeing in their habitats is difficult. (2-3 min)
3) Tell students we are going to play a game to practice echolocation. Have students stand in a circle. Choose one student to be a bat and come to the center of the circle and place a blindfold around the bat’s eyes. Walk around the circle and tap one student on the shoulder to indicate they are the moth. Explain this game is like Marco Polo, using voices to simulate echolocation. Every time the bat calls out “bat”, the moth must reply “moth” and the other students will respond with ‘wall’. The bat should repeat the call until they decide which student is the moth and point to them. Encourage students playing the bat to try with their normal ears and with their hands cupped around their ears. Discuss which works better. Play a few rounds. For an extra challenge, remove the blindfold from the bat after you pick the moth and let moths and walls ‘fly’ around a small area as they play. (7-10 min)
4) Ask students to show you how big they think bats are. Explain wingspan by measuring the wingspan of several students. Give each student a picture of a local bat. Demonstrate the wingspan of their bats and encourage students to share something they notice about their bat and what it eats (on the back). Discuss how each bat’s coloring or size might help it hide. Invite students to speculate where bats might sleep. If time, go on a walk around the area and search for trees or cracks in the rock where local bats may be sleeping. Review why bats have big ears. (10 min)
Extension: Tell students a nursing little brown bat mother can eat more than her body weight each night (up to 4,500 insects). Allow students to guess how many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches the average second grader would need to eat to catch up with this mama bat? Use the bat math booklet to figure out the answer with students. (3-5 min)
Camouflage
Essential Questions: How does coloring help animals survive in the desert?
Materials: Samples of different kinds of fur; pictures of furry desert animals; animal cutouts
Procedure:
1) Ask students to remember the pre-trip when they talked about animals in different habitats. Ask if they think Courthouse Wash is a habitat? Invite students to look around silently for 30 seconds and find things they notice about this habitat. Have every student share something they notice. If brought up, discuss how this wash is special because water is available, therefore more living things might be here than in other places in Arches National Park. Show students pictures of desert animals and ask what similarities they see between the photos. Once someone observes the fur, flip the cards over to show the fur samples on the back. Have students point to things in the natural environment that match the different colors in the furs. To survive and not get eaten, lots of animals blend in with the colors in their habitat. The science word for blending into your environment is camouflage. (5 min)
2) Take students to a new area and tell them desert animals are hiding nearby. Point out the boundaries. When you say go, students should spread out and try to count as many of the animals as they can. Students should not touch the animals they find. After a few minutes, bring the group together. Then, ask which animals were the easiest to find, and why? Use the term camouflage to discuss patterns in their answers. Ask students which animals were the hardest to find, and why? (5 min)
3) Ask students to observe what other students are wearing and predict who is best camouflaged for this environment. Tell students they are going to investigate if their predictions are correct. Give students specific boundaries and turn them into mice who must hide from an eagle. When they hide, they must be able to see the eagle at all times. Pick someone to be the eagle. Have them turn towards you, close their eyes, and count to fifteen. The eagle must stay in one place as they search for their classmates. The eagle will call out names of students he/she sees. Once a student’s name is called, they must come sit by the eagle. As the eagle finds students, discuss what made them more visible or more camouflaged. (15 min)
4) Discuss how animals in other environments need different colored fur to be camouflaged. For example, polar bears are white to be camouflaged against the snow. Orca whales are black on top and white on the bottom to blend in from above or below in the water.
What Can I Eat?
Essential Question: How does the shape of a bird’s beak correspond to what it eats?
Materials: pictures of birds with different beak types; plastic cup “stomachs;” “insects” (fake flies and beetles, uncooked rice); fake worms; “nectar” (water); “fish” (ping pong balls); water jug; stopwatch; bucket; plastic bowl; vase/tall narrow container; clay model of canyon wall with holes; 3 blue trays; habitat signs
Procedure:
1) Have students feel their teeth with their tongue. Teeth are structures that function to help animals eat. (2-3 min)
2) Show students photos of different birds. Ask students what they notice about the beaks. Discuss what they think the structures of different beaks do to help each bird survive. Tell students they are going to investigate some different beaks for themselves. (1-2 min)
3) Turn all students into birds and “fly” over to the three model habitats. Go through each habitat with students, reading aloud the description of each habitat. When applicable, point to nearby locations similar to each model habitat. Show students available beaks, and if necessary, demonstrate their use (especially the pipette). (2-3 min)
4) Hand each student a small plastic cup to represent their stomach. Remind students they can only use their beak (not their hands or cups) to pick up food. Split students into pairs and assign each pair a habitat. Each student should select a beak. Remind them they will all get to use all the beaks. Allow students to forage with their beaks for 20-30 seconds. Afterwards, partners should compare their stomach contents and figure out which bird got the most food. Have students empty their stomachs, switch beaks, and repeat. Ask students about patterns they notice in their results. After each pair has used both beaks at their habitat, rotate students to new habitats. Repeat all until all students have visited all habitats and used all beaks. (7-10 min)
5) Collect stomachs and turn students back into second graders. As a group, revisit each feeding scene and discuss which beak or structure worked best to fulfill the function of eating food at each scene. Use bird photos to assign a bird to each “best beak” and discuss whether both the beak and habitat match the bird. At the end, ask what might happen if a bird landed in a different habitat (i.e. great blue heron up high on a canyon wall, etc). (3-5 min)
6) Discuss how knowing what a bird eats might help you know where to look for it. Ask students for examples. Go for a walk to look for birds. (10 min)
| Habitat | Food type | Best beak tool | Other beak tool | Bird |
| Flowers | Nectar- water in narrow necked water bottle | Pipette | Spoon | Hummingbird |
| Lake | Fish- pingpong balls; fake worms | Tongs | clothespin | Great blue heron |
| Canyon wall | Insects- rice | Tweezers | Binder clip | Canyon wren |
Inspired by Nature
Essential Question: How can humans use the structure of animal adaptations?
Materials: animal pictures; biomimicry photos for document camera; pictures of Courthouse Wash; paper
Procedure:
1) Review the definition of adaptations. Show students pictures of animals this a few animals they learned about on their field trip and discuss their adaptations. (2-3 min)
2) Tell students people don’t have all the amazing adaptations animals and plant have, but we have big brains we can use to copy animal and plant structures. Show a picture of an animal and invite students to guess an invention humans made to copy it. Give hints as necessary. For example: camel and a camelback backpack, or a turtle and a bike helmet. Tell students they will create an invention inspired by nature to help them solve a problem. (5 -7 min)
3) Show students pictures of Courthouse Wash experiencing different weather, including a flash flood. Tell students you would like them to turn on their imaginations and invent something copied from nature to help them survive in Courthouse Wash. Give students a piece of paper and invite them to draw their invention. Drawing should include the weather. Ask students to label the important parts of their invention. If time, encourage students to share their drawings. (10 - 15 minutes).
Amazing Mammals Part II. (1986). Ranger Rick’s NatureScope. Washington, DC: National Wildlife Federation.
Berk, Ari. (2012) Nightsong. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.
Birds, Birds Birds. (1989). Ranger Rick’s NatureScope. Washington, DC: National Wildlife Federation.
Let’s hear it for herps. (1987). Ranger Rick’s NatureScope. Washington, DC: National Wildlife Federation.
Lingelbach, J. (Ed.). (1986). Hands-on-nature: Information and activities for exploring the environment with children. Woodstock, VT: Vermont Institute of Natural Science.
Messner, Kate. (2021). Over and Under the Canyon. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books LLC.
Project WILD: K-12 activity guide. (2nd ed). (1992). Bethesda, MD: Council for Environmental Education.
Strauss, K. (2006). Tales with Tails: Storytelling the Wonders of the Natural World. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.
Species Profiles. Batcon.org
Materials
Last updated: July 26, 2022