If you found an injured wild animal, what would you do? There are many myths and misinformation about how to rescue animals, and doing the wrong thing can add stress or make the situation worse. The best thing to do is to contact a professional wildlife rehabilitator.
In this episode, Into the Outdoors Adventure Team members, Zach and Sophie come across an injured young bird. Professional rehabilitators from Fellow Mortals Wildlife Hospital in Lake Geneva, WI, help them sort through the “dos and don’ts” of wildlife rescue: when to leave it alone, how to contain it, keep it warm and seek additional care.
Students will also learn about career and volunteer pathways in wildlife rehabilitation through interviews with Fellow Mortals staff. Wildlife rehabilitators offer medical care to animals, like veterinarians do, but they see hundreds of different species! They care for the animals 24-7, which might include hand-feeding and regular cleaning, until the animals are ready to be released back into the wild.
Zach and Sophie celebrate how compassion prompted them to act as "Wildlife First Responders" and seek care, which ultimately saves the bird’s life. They share additional information on how we all can help prevent injuries or orphaning of wild animals.
So how does this water cycle thing work? Discover the answers by watching this Serious Science video and reading the information below. And to take this learning adventure into your classroom, have your teacher download the free Lesson Activity at the bottom of this page so everyone can share in the fun of this inquiry based learning.
Like many things on our planet, water is constantly changing. As it goes through its cycle, water can change from a solid, to a liquid, or even into a gas. This constant change helps our rivers to run, lakes to stay full, and supplies our homes with water. Without this cycle, our water supplies would be in trouble. The water cycle, or “hydrologic cycle” as our scientist friends call it, can be broken up into three major stages.
The first stage in the water cycle is “evaporation”. As the sun’s energy heats the surface of our lakes, rivers, plants and soil, the water begins to turn to “water vapor”. Steam coming off hot liquid is one way we can see water vapor. This water vapor is a gas that can rise up into the sky. Winds and air currents push the water vapor through the atmosphere until it forms into the next stage – clouds. Have you looked at the sky and wondered “where do all those clouds come from?” Well, they are an important part of the water cycle.
To discover the rest of this story that affects every aspect of life here on the "blue planet", watch this video. Or, to really dive into the depths of understanding the water cycle, try the companion Lesson Guide below in your classroom.
To really get your feet wet in understanding the water cycle, students and educators can learn all about the various roles of water in our lives by exploring Project WET's Discover Water. Just follow the link and dive into all the wet learning there.
Oh yeah, there's also lots more info below in "Learn More" expanded section. Enjoy the water.
Plus, the educational partner noted below supported the video and lesson content here for all of us to learn from. They also offer other learning opportunities on their website. So click on their logo to discover more!
Hey, teachers and educators!! Don't forget to check out the advanced overview for some quick-start birding lessons in your classroom plus the lesson plans below.
Did you know that more than 45 million people in the United States are birders? That means one out of seven people you meet enjoy searching for and identifying these important feathery animals.
Why are birds so important you may ask? Well first of all, they help grow and protect many crops that you eat during your mealtimes. Two thousand bird species and other animals help pollinate 90% of plants and 75% of crops around the world. Birds also eat 20 quadrillion plant-eating insects each year that destroy crops like corn, apples, strawberries, and lettuce. Not only do birds help us eat and grow, but their ability to fly at incredible heights, speeds, and distances inspired us to build airplanes. It is no wonder since the peregrine falcon can dive up to 200 miles per hour while the Ruppel’s griffon vulture can fly 37,000 feet off the ground. That is higher than the world’s tallest mountains, the Himalayan Mountains. Lastly, since birds are sensitive to changes in temperature, moisture, and oxygen in their environmental surroundings, birds can be indicators of climate change. Counting the number of species and individual birds in an area assists scientists in gauging the health of the environment. The higher the variety and amount of birds, the better. (of course not in all cases? Could be overpopulation, crowding effects)(scientists may record shifts in nesting or migration behaviors too)
So what can we do to keep or regain habitat for birds? Organizations of people across the country aim to reduce the threat of habitat loss by building sanctuaries or conservancies. These sanctuaries and conservancies are refuges for birds because they protect, manage, and restore habitats that birds depend upon. Thinks of these places as hotels. When birds are in need of a new home, looking for places to find a partner and raise a family, or searching for a place to rest while traveling south for the winter, a bird will ‘check in’ to one of these hotels. Here, a bird may visit family and friends, eat lots of natural food, drink clean water, swim in the pool, and sleep in a safe space. Sounds fun, right?
Additionally, every bird species is unique and requires certain characteristics in their habitat. Therefore, a ‘hotel’ staff must work hard and long to create and maintain a sanctuary or conservancy that provides a vast array of habitats for as many bird and wildlife species as possible. For instance, you may find habitats ranging from tallgrass prairies and oak savannahs to mature hardwood forests and temperate rainforests to open wetlands and coastal beaches in a conservancy or sanctuary.
But sanctuaries and conservancies cannot build themselves. Watch these two videos and learn how avian stewards like you can help sanctuaries and conservancies reach to the skies and create quality habitat for birds.
Our educational partner, American Transmission Company (ATC), supported the video content above. To learn more about their pollinator program, check out the link below. Also, look out for ATC's new bird identification field guide! Book copies may be purchased at the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary in Greenbay, Wisconsin.
Attention, teachers and educators!! Swoop down below to the "Learn More" tab to discover successful ways to build birdhouses with your students. Moreover, check out the elementary lesson plans at the bottom of the page in order to build nest boxes and watch live eagle nests on camera with your class!
When you hear birds singing outside your window, you are listening to the echoes of the past – dinosaurs! Paleontologists have unearthed and analyzed dinosaur fossils and bones for two centuries to understand where birds came from. Due to their hard work and research, scientists have found birds are the descendants of dinosaurs, meaning birds are dinosaurs’ great-great-great-great-great-great-great … grandchildren. Do you know why? Dinosaurs and birds have similar skeleton structures and light, hollow bones. Birds also lay eggs and build nests similar to how dinosaurs did 66 million years ago.
Why do birds even build nests? When your parents laid you down to sleep at night as baby, they might have put you in a crib. Bird nests are essentially like baby cribs. They are safe spaces for birds to protect their children from weather, predators, or falling from great heights. And it may take Mama and Papa Bird days or weeks to build the nest! The parents must first search for the perfect location that will provide shelter from wind, precipitation, and sun: perhaps high in a tree, under your house’s roof, or in bushes and shady grasses. Then they must build, build, build! In the springtime, you may see birds flying and carrying grass blades or twigs in their mouth. This means they are crafting and weaving a special “crib” for their eggs. Just like a crib, a nest must be sturdy, but also have cushioning – like a mattress. Birds will construct nests with branches while also using soft materials such as lichen, leaves, feathers, and fine grasses. These soft materials will provide insulation to keep the eggs warm as well as flexibility to adjust to growing baby birds. Some birds will even go to great lengths to blend in and hide (or in other words, camouflage) their nest into the surroundings. A tree swallow or Baltimore oriole may use two weeks to build a nest for his/her family! And bird nests vary in all shapes, colors, materials, and sizes – just like how every artist’s painting is uniquely different. Some bird species will weave ornate baskets that sit or hang from tree branches while other birds will nest in tree cavities, on cliff sides, on top of water, within shrubs or even upon a simple depression in the ground.
Once the birds are finished building their special nest, it is time for Mama Bird to lay her eggs. How many eggs can she lay? Well, the clutch – or the number of eggs the female lays – depends upon the species of bird. Tropical birds may only lay two to three eggs while waterfowl can lay up to 15 eggs! Then, the female (and sometimes even the male) will sit … and sit … and sit … on the eggs for weeks until they hatch. Usually, the larger the bird species, the longer it takes the eggs to hatch. The parent bird must be diligent and keep the eggs heated between 99 to 102 degrees Farenheight – that’s as warm as a high fever! When the baby chick is ready to hatch, the chick must work hard to break free of the shell. It can take hours or sometimes even days! They use a hard bump on their beak called an egg tooth to chip through the eggshell.
You may be wondering how long it takes for birds to raise their young. The answer is … it depends! Some birds are born altricial while others are born precocial. Altricial birds, such as songbirds and seabirds, are born into the world blind, featherless, and weak. To grow strong, they greatly depend upon their parents to keep them warm, sheltered, and fed, like how we did as babies. After a month in the nest, the large and feathery hatchlings may stretch their wings and fly from the nest. Yet, imagine if human babies could walk within hours or days of being born. That is what precocial birds can do! These precocial chicks have feathers and advanced motor and sensory functions when born. Ready to be off the nest, the chicks and parents will journey to brood habitat that is stocked full of yummy insects and grubs for the chicks to eat. However, the time it takes for them to fledge, or fly, may take several months. That’s a long time to avoid predators on the ground without flight. Regardless, once the chick has successfully fledged, the baby chick becomes a “juvenile” and must eventually brave the wide world without their parents.
Breeding and nesting habitats are some of the most critical habitats to birds. Yet, as cities consume and continue to reduce the wild landscape, birds increasingly struggle to find safe spaces to breed, reproduce, and successfully fledge their young. Increases in human settlement may reduce the quality of nesting habitat. More specifically, the spread of human development can:
Yet, organizations and people like you are working actively to reduce and mitigate the impacts of human development. Stretch your wings and watch these two videos like a hawk in order to learn how companies create nesting habitat for great blue herons and osprey. And if you download the lesson guides below, you and your fellow peeps can help bird families find a home by watching birds build nests and then designing your own backyard bird houses for them.
Our educational partner, American Transmission Company (ATC), supported the video content above. To learn more about their avian protection program, check out the link below. Also, look out for ATC’s new bird identification field guide! Book copies may be purchased at the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary in Greenbay, Wisconsin.
If you haven't yet explored our Pioneers In Conservation page yet, please take a moment to at least watch the video there. Why? Because understanding the history of America's conservation programs can help us better understand and project the future of our conservation programs. The formula is pretty simple, really. When nobody funded hunting and fishing, people hunted and fished until populations were all but wiped out in many areas. Nobody regulated and managed those species then because there wasn't a funded agency or funding for management. Two prime examples are the billions of passenger pigeons that are now gone forever, or fish such as the Arctic grayling that once filled the cold water rivers in Michigan.
Let's decode this a little more. America's conservation programs are run by agencies and organizations. Those agencies and organizations are made up of teams of conservation professionals who have dedicated their careers to conservation of fish, wildlife and ecosystems. It costs a lot of money to run those agencies and employ those teams of conservation professionals. So where does all that money come from to fund conservation programs across the nation?
America's conservation programs are funded from two major sources; 1) fees paid by people who participate in various outdoor pursuits, such as anglers and hunters who buy licenses each year, 2) special "excise taxes" paid on certain items purchased for outdoors pursuits. So the bottom line is that if fewer people fish, hunt, and purchase related outdoor gear, there will be less and less money to fund the agencies and conservation programs that all Americans enjoy. To learn more about the details of funding of America's conservation programs, click on the LEARN MORE tab below.
It's somewhat of a "user pay" principle. Fewer outdoor people equates to less conservation funding, while more outdoor people means more funding for conservation programs. Of course there's one small twist in all this. Only about 5% of Americans hunt and only 10% fish. Yet this relatively small funding slice of society pays for the majority of conservation programs that 100% of all Americans get to enjoy. So to continue getting funding for conservation, Conservation Educators need to get more people interested and actually involved in outdoor pursuits. Their jobs combine being part educator, part salesperson, social media and promotional expert, and using a variety of public engagement programs that focus on something called "R3"... 1) Recruitment, 2) Retention, 3) Reactivation... of people who fish, hunt, trap, and participate in shooting sports and other key outdoor pursuits.
To discover how these Conservation Educators connect the public with the rewards of being actively involved in conservation related pursuits, watch the video here, and have your teacher conduct the lesson activities below so your entire class can share in understanding how conservation works for all of us to enjoy.
So are YOU interested in a career as a Conservation Educator or R3 Coordinator? If you're unsure, contact one in your state to learn more about all the things they do for the future of conservation programs.
This wildlife education program is made possible with support of these key educational partners. You and your teachers can link to their websites for additional information and educational opportunities.
At SCI Foundation’s American Wilderness Leadership School location in Jackson, Wyoming, educators and students learn about conservation, wildlife management, and outdoor recreation through outdoor, hands-on activities. Their Hands on Wildlife (HOW) program provides educators with conservation education instructional tools they can use in hands-on instruction.
Hey, teachers and educators!! Don't forget to check out the advanced overview for some quick-start birding lessons in your classroom plus the lesson plans below.
Did you know that more than 45 million people in the United States are birders? That means one out of seven people you meet enjoy searching for and identifying these important feathery animals.
Why are birds so important you may ask? Well first of all, they help grow and protect many crops that you eat during your mealtimes. Two thousand bird species and other animals help pollinate 90% of plants and 75% of crops around the world. Birds also eat 20 quadrillion plant-eating insects each year that destroy crops like corn, apples, strawberries, and lettuce. Not only do birds help us eat and grow, but their ability to fly at incredible heights, speeds, and distances inspired us to build airplanes. It is no wonder since the peregrine falcon can dive up to 200 miles per hour while the Ruppel’s griffon vulture can fly 37,000 feet off the ground. That is higher than the world’s tallest mountains, the Himalayan Mountains. Lastly, since birds are sensitive to changes in temperature, moisture, and oxygen in their environmental surroundings, birds can be indicators of climate change. Counting the number of species and individual birds in an area assists scientists in gauging the health of the environment. The higher the variety and amount of birds, the better. (of course not in all cases? Could be overpopulation, crowding effects)(scientists may record shifts in nesting or migration behaviors too)
Scientists are now predicting that almost half of our North American birds are at risk of extinction within the next 100 years. Currently, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has listed 90 bird species as endangered, or in other words, near extinction. You may be wondering why so many birds are in trouble. There are multiple reasons accounting for this threat, such as the expansion of cities, pollution, or clearing of forests. However, one of the largest threats to bird survival is habitat loss. Habitats are like your house: they provide food, water, shelter, and space for the bird. And today, birds are losing their homes due to human impacts. For example, humans have converted 290 million acres of native grasslands into agricultural fields within North America. These rolling hills of grasses and flowers are one of the most rapidly disappearing habitats in the western hemisphere and are home to many bird species, such as a “ricebird” called the bobolink. With fewer and fewer grasslands to breed and live in within the last 40 years, our bobolink populations have decreased by 50 percent.
So what can we do to keep or regain habitat for birds? Organizations of people across the country aim to reduce the threat of habitat loss by building sanctuaries or conservancies. These sanctuaries and conservancies are refuges for birds because they protect, manage, and restore habitats that birds depend upon. Thinks of these places as hotels. When birds are in need of a new home, looking for places to find a partner and raise a family, or searching for a place to rest while traveling south for the winter, a bird will ‘check in’ to one of these hotels. Here, a bird may visit family and friends, eat lots of natural food, drink clean water, swim in the pool, and sleep in a safe space. Sounds fun, right?
Additionally, every bird species is unique and requires certain characteristics in their habitat. Therefore, a ‘hotel’ staff must work hard and long to create and maintain a sanctuary or conservancy that provides a vast array of habitats for as many bird and wildlife species as possible. For instance, you may find habitats ranging from tallgrass prairies and oak savannahs to mature hardwood forests and temperate rainforests to open wetlands and coastal beaches in a conservancy or sanctuary.
But sanctuaries and conservancies cannot build themselves. Watch these two videos and learn how avian stewards like you can help sanctuaries and conservancies reach to the skies and create quality habitat for birds.
Our educational partner, American Transmission Company (ATC), supported the video content above. To learn more about their pollinator program, check out the link below. Also, look out for ATC's new bird identification field guide! Book copies may be purchased at the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary in Greenbay, Wisconsin.
How do Polar vortexes, climate change, record storms, extreme weather of all kinds play havoc on our ecosystems and all the species that live there? Discover the answers by watching the four parts of this science show and reading the information below. And to take this learning adventure into your classroom, have your teacher download the free Discussion Guide at the bottom of this page so everyone can share in the fun of this inquiry based learning.
While some species thrive, like record hordes of mosquitoes, others like the loons or whooping cranes struggle to raise their broods when assaulted by record hatches of blood-sucking blackflies. Even though species have had to adapt to various stages of climate change such as glacial advances across the Midwest over the past 2.3 million years, it’s little consolation to some species enduring extreme changes each year that affect their chances of survival. And even with our modern technology, us humans must also develop new strategies to confront the challenges of surviving in the face of record snows, rains, and temperature extremes. While considering this fact, imagine what it must have been like historically for Native Americans.
So all this raises the question, “How do the species that live out in the wild survive these extreme conditions?” The answer is all about extreme survival strategies that different species have evolved over tens of thousands of years. Some strategies are similar between species while others are extremely different. To discover how many species use their unique survival strategies, watch the four segments of this exciting episode. You might even learn that you're not supposed to mess with hibernating bears in their den as they can easily wake up and defend themselves. And for gosh sakes, don't run from that bear!
To take this survival strategy learning to a whole new level, have your teacher download the free discussion guide so your entire classroom can participate while learning a few survival tricks from Mother Nature. If you're an elementary or high school student, download the additional lessons we have provided to use with the discussion guide!
Plus, the educational partner noted below supported the video and lesson content here for all of us to learn from. They also offer other learning opportunities on their website. So click on their logo to discover more!
In the lesson activity that accompanies this Into the Outdoors @Home video, students will contemplate how a moment captured in time from one person’s perspective can inspire other people to make the future better. One person can make a difference, if they have vision, passion and motivation!
Students will also examine the balance needed in ecosystems through the web of life, and revisit the idea of survival, and how through our hobbies and interests, we can make a difference as an individual and as a group.
For more information and resources related to hunting and conservation, visit Hunter-ED.com
The information in our video and on this page was made possible by our educational partners
Students often have the misconception that they are too young to do anything important, big, or life changing. However, many skills, occupations and hobbies that enrich our adult lives can start when we are young.
In the lesson activity that accompanies this Into the Outdoors @Home video, we are going to examine how youth can get involved now in something that will enrich and shape them throughout their lives.
For more information and resources related to hunting and conservation, visit Hunter-ED.com
The information in our video and on this page was made possible by our educational partners.
Hunting anywhere is challenging, especially for an inexperienced hunter on open land. In order to be successful, new hunters need the guidance of a mentor, so that they can learn about the animal's behavior, how to use the terrain and ground cover, and what factors could make the hunt successful. They also need to be shown what is safe or unsafe so they don’t cause danger to themselves or other bystanders and area residents.
In the lesson activity that accompanies this Into the Outdoors @Home video, we will consider the value of mentorship in first time experiences. Hunting requires a good amount of skill, careful observation, careful movements, and knowing the right time to act. These skills come through experience, which would be difficult to gain on one’s own, without the benefit of someone who can share, guide, and interpret the experience.
For more information and resources related to hunting and conservation, visit Hunter-ED.com
The information in our video and on this page was made possible by our educational partners.