Audubon Adventures

Activity

Start the class with a recap of the previous discussion of migration. Ask students to offer examples of what they learned from reading the Audubon Adventures magazine, “Birds on the Move.” Tell them that today they’ll discover a new way to investigate bird migration with an online program called the Bird Migration Explorer.
Using your interactive whiteboard, open the Bird Migration Explorer to its homepage. Give students a brief overview of how to use the Explorer and demonstrate its main features, as follows:

On the homepage, click “Bird Species.” Point to the four “Featured Species” and explain that these birds are featured because they have very interesting migration journeys. Students can explore them on their own later if they choose.
Point out the heading “All Species (458).” Explain that these are all of the species whose migration is tracked on the Explorer. Scroll through images of birds to give students a preview.
Click the bird you previously selected.
Point out these features of the screen that appears:

an image of the bird, its name, and a brief description of its range on the left;
an animated map to the right, showing where birds of this species are throughout the year, indicated by the moving time line at the bottom of the map;
a map key explaining what the dots mean and what the map’s color coding indicates.

Now click the “Species Connections” map in the panel on the left. Point out the shaded hexagons, which indicate locations for the selected bird species. Also point out the map key again, which indicates how color-coding shows where this species is during summer, winter, and year-round.
Next, click the “Conservation Challenges” button. Invite students to choose one of the conservation challenges to focus on. Once again point out the animated features of the map and the map key explaining what is shown.
Click “Related Links” at the bottom of the panel on the left, then choose the first button, which takes you to Audubon’s Online Bird Guide and the page with information about the selected species. Review the information available there about the species, including its habitat, diet, and migration.

Encourage students to ask questions about what they see in the Explorer and what they learned from the various features in their Audubon Adventures magazine, “Birds on the Move.” Pose some questions for them to consider, such as:

What story does the Bird Migration Explorer tell you about this bird’s life?
What time of year is this bird in our area?
Where does it go the rest of the year?
Why do you think it doesn’t stay here all year?
How do you think what this bird eats is connected to where it lives at different times of the year?
What kinds of challenges does this bird face when it is in our area? What challenges does it face in other parts of its migration range?
What can we do to help birds throughout their migration?

In all cases, encourage students to speculate and engage them in discussion to guide them toward accurate information or reasonable explanations.