University of Reading



center-533400Adaptations – Bird-Beak Investigation00Adaptations – Bird-Beak InvestigationLearning objective:ALL: A living thing has adaptations that help an organism to survive in its natural environment.MOST: These adaptations have evolved over a long time.SOME: Use key words to explain that the Galapagos finches have evolved over time different beak shapes to suit the food that was available to them on each particular island.Differentiated Outcomes:ALL: Point out adaptations of certain animals.MOST: Will be able to explain how certain adaptations help the living thing to survive in its natural environment.SOME: Explain that in the case of the Galapagos finches, different beak shapes evolved to specialise getting different types of food, and be able to explain why some beaks are better than others at getting these food types.Lesson in context/prior learning: Explain that animals are suited to their environment. Specific traits/characteristics help living things within their specific environment. The bird beak investigation is also in line with lessons in which you will teach the children all about Darwin and his theory of evolution by Natural Selection. During Darwin’s voyage on the Bugle he came across the Galapagos finches and realised that different islands had birds that had evolved different evolutionary adaptations to suit the resources on that island. Here the children will be using tools to symbolise the bird beaks to pick up different items that represent the food on the island.Activity 1: Recap: Living things have adaptations that help them survive in their natural environment. It is usually easy to see certain physical adaptations but they can also be behavioural e.g. when birds see a predator, they start an alarm call. Use visual aids and ask the students what adaptations they have.Activity 2: Introduce evolution to the children. Explain that these adaptations happened over a very long time (refer to timeline sheets they have done). Note: When saying they have evolved, the children are likely to ask why or how? See our Natural Selection section for mechanisms behind the process of evolution!527113597980500-57150097980500Activity 3: Bird beak activity. Using the materials outlined below, children will be divided into groups of 3 (one child for each beak type – you can design more beaks!). Children will use their beaks (only the hand holding the ‘beak’ can be used to pick up food) to pick up as many items of food they can from the plate of food types and place them into their individual cups. After 30 seconds (the aim is to stop them before they have exhausted all the food on the plate) the children have to record how many pieces of food, what type of food and what type of beak they have used. Bring the whole class’ data together and work out which beaks were best at collecting which foods. Each group will have the same beak, then you can compare beak shapes to show some foods are easier to handle. The second part of the test requires the bags of only one food type. Explain to the students that the birds are separated on two islands (with one group of each beak type on each island). There has been a drought and most of the food types have died. The food type still on the islands is different to each other. Half the groups have rice, the other have the marbles. Repeat the 30 seconds and see which birds survived the drought best on each island.Materials needed (For a class of 30 students – 10 groups of three for each beak type):10 pairs of tweezers10 spoons10 straws10 paper plates30 cups10 bags of rice, peanuts, marbles15 bags of rice15 bags of marblesStudents will answer differentiated questions:Were some beaks better than others at picking up certain food types?Why are some beaks better than others with some food types?With reference to the Galapagos finches (if already taught), why were some beak shapes more common on islands than others? (Try to get them to use key words i.e. adaptation, evolved etc.)Plenary: Conclude to the class that different beak shapes have evolved and are better suited to certain environments than others. On islands that have a lot of hard food types and not many small food types and thus a large strong beak would be most suited, you would expect to find more birds with this type of beak. Give children certain scenarios and ask which beak fits? Ask how birds have certain beak shapes i.e. have evolved over time by natural selection making the beak shape prevalent. Explain that this has happened with finches on the Galapagos Islands, and Charles Darwin observed these things and you will find out about him next!-58483546482000525780046482000 ................
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