Introduction
Watching your students in lab can be a blast. When students are engaged and learning teaching is good. This lab teaches students about adaptations in birds, opens doors to other scientific principles and students enjoy what they are doing. Students get to compete against each other on a new field, so the best science students and your worst will be on even ground. Students are arranged in groups of five, two big beak birds two small beak bird and one referee/time keeper. The Big beak bird compete against the small beak birds for the first
Materials and Methods
Material and apparatus development for the teacher.
1 The labs all require the use of two different size beaks. We built our beaks with 6.5 cm and 15 cm popsicle®sticks, 1 cm and 2 cm diameter Tygon ® tubing and small rubber bands (picture #1). Try to keep the pivot near the last 1/3 of the beak and keep al of the pivot in the same position. Students will try to move the pivots for maximum articulation so try to keep the playing field level. You only want the beak size as the variable.
For the bird’s prey we have tried a couple of items Teddy Grams®, Cheerios®, Fruit Loops® each worked well each has benefits and short comings. Teddy Grams ® are the most durable and the easiest to manipulate, but they were costly. Cheerios® and Fruit Loops® are the least expensive and the least durable but worked very well. For some parts of this lab multiple size prey is needed. The colors of the Fruit Loops® lead to some other possibilities, see lab extension ideas.
For the “nest” you will need 10-12 oz paper cups. You will need to cut 1 hole in the bottom of the approximately2mm larger than the prey you use ( picture #2). The nest will
be multifunctional to help cut cost.
For problem number five, Competitive foraging, you need to set the students up for a surprise. You need to gather all of the students and have them do this part of lab at one time. Have your referees get beaks and nest they get to play too. Make a fairly large pile of prey items in the front of the room, tell the students to pick nest spots away from the prey pile. Once birds pick a site they can not move their nest. After everyone has their nest site scoop up the prey pile, remind the birds they cannot move, and move the pile to a new simi-confind spot lie in a doorway! The idea is to get students to really fight for food and not have easy access to the food source.
Instructions for students
Bird beak Lab
Purpose: learn how different beak sizes affect birds’ ability to gather and manipulate their food, as well as feeding their offspring, and other life factors.
Problems:
Ø Big beak vs small beak and food items caching efficiency.
Ø Big beaks vs small beaks and food gathering efficiency.
Ø Big beaks vs small beaks nest feeding efficiency.
Ø How beak size influences capture ability of different sized food items.
Ø Competitive foraging, nesting pair food gathering efficiency.
Procedures for students
#1 Food items caching problem.
Birds often store their food someplace prior to nesting. We’re going to simulate this food gathering and “caching” behavior using “bird beaks” made of rubber bands and Popsicle sticks. Working groups of five, you will need a pair of big beak birds, a pair of small beak birds, and a timer/referee. Place twenty food items in a pile in front of each pair of birds place a mark 1 meter away. Time how fast each pair can move their pile of food items. You must pick up the food items, and no cooperation. The pair that can cache their food items the fastest will have enough food to feed their offspring later (hence, they win). Repeat three times and record data in a table of your design.
#2 Food gathering efficiency (scramble competition trials).
In the wild, animals often have to compete with each other for a limited supply of food. The ability to gather food quickly may depend on the beak size of our birds. Which beak type is better? Working groups of five, you will need a pair of big beak birds, a pair of small beak birds, and a timer/referee. Set 40 food items in the middle of the table. Have students pair into big vs. small beaked pairs. Have the students start at the same time and compete to see which pair of birds can gather the most food items before the pile is gone. Same rules: no pair cooperation, each bird must pick up the food items. No direct interference between groups, Repeat 3 times, record.
#3 Nest feeding efficiency.
Some parrots create nests in hollow trees, and seal their mate (along with the eggs) in the tree with mud. The mate flies around, gathers food and passes it to their mate inside the tree. We’re going to simulate this by creating a nest out of an inverted paper cup with a square hole cut in the bottom (just big enough to fit a food items through) and a ring stand with 10cm ring. One bird gathers food from their source pile. The outside bird must go to the pile and transport their food items to the nest. The male must hand the food to the female without dropping it then the female has to drop their food items into the nest in order to feed their offspring. Food items cannot be picked up once dropped, be careful. The female, on the insidepushed through the hole, and the hole cannot be enlarged. The referee times again, and each pair (big vs. small beaks) tries to feed their offspring the fastest.
#4 Food items size and Beak size.
Working groups of five, you will need a pair of big beak birds, a pair of small beak birds, and a timer/referee. Place twenty large food items aand twenty small food items in a mixed pile in front of each pair of birds, place a mark 1 meter away. Time how fast each pair can move their pile of food items. You must pick up the food items, and no cooperation. Repeat three times and record data in a table of your design. Then repeat the experiment with small food items.
#5 Competitive foraging.
Working in breeding pairs, pick your nest site. A bag on minis and a box of large bears will be placed in the room in one location. All breading pairs will capture as many bears as they can in a specific amount of time. You must cache in your nest and use only your beak!!!!