Describes several hummingbird adaptations and suggests ways of attracting hummingbirds to schoolyards and including them in the curriculum. Provides hummingbird feeder tips along with a list of ideas for designing inquiry-based activities related to hummingbird behavior. Also provides a hummingbird quiz, two instructional games, and a listing of…

Presents an activity that engages students in designing and making an artificial flower adapted for pollination by hummingbirds. Students work in teams to design flowers that maximize the benefit from attracting hummingbirds. Examines characteristics of real flowers adapted to pollination by hummingbirds. (DLH)

Presents activities on tracking and stalking wildlife that can be incorporated into the elementary secondary education curriculum. Includes activities such as Tracking and Questioning, Trail Detectives, Magic Tracking Stick, Trailing, Cast Collecting, Animal Forms Relay, Firekeeper, Bat and Moth, Grazing Deer, and Sneaking. (YDS)

Introduces an undergraduate course offered to junior and senior students on tracking and stalking in the wild. Finds and identifies fresh tracks of species selected by students as the ultimate goal of the course. (YDS)

Engaging, attractive schoolyard ponds provide habitat for wildlife and hold great educational promise. Reviews water safety and liability issues including mud, stagnant pond water that serves as mosquito breeding grounds, and drowning. Offers ideas for creatively addressing those issues through site planning, shallow water depth, signage and…

Describes a natural science course designed to teach students that nature is nearby rather than somewhere else. Students learn about local flora and fauna, track the weather, and closely monitor the progression of the seasons. The course uses no textbook, regularly uses the outdoors as a classroom, and follows the seasons' phenology as the…

Offers suggestions for leading a field trip to a pond. Such field trips encourage children to be comfortable in natural habitats, to ask questions about the natural world and to discuss the validity of the answers, understand that their behavior affects the environment, and take active part in preserving resources. Includes activities and…

Building a pond in a schoolyard is a rewarding way to help boost local populations of amphibians, to increase the natural value of school grounds, and to serve as a locale for observing the life cycles of plants, invertebrates, and amphibians. This article outlines important considerations in designing and building a pond from siting through…

Outlines the necessary steps for designing a school wetland which include site assessment, estimating water volume, analyzing soil permeability, site design, and implementation. (PVD)

Mapping is a means of experiencing a community's features that engages the mapmaker. Getting to know the community by drawing maps and learning about past and present inhabitants was the methodology for introducing local content into the English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) classroom. This model for mapping was used with adult and high school ESL…