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| |  | SCI-LIT LINKS QUICKPLAN
CAMOUFLAGE
(QuickPlan developed by Dr. Ken Mechling, Clarion, Pennsylvania)
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OVERVIEW: Children read the book How to Hide a Butterfly and participate in three simulations: Missing Moth, Hide a Butterfly, and Birds and Worms in which they observe and discuss the effects of camouflage.
BOOKLINK: How to Hide a Butterfly by Ruth Heller, Grosset and Dunlap, Publishers, 1992. ISBN 0-448-40477-X
SCIENCE ACTIVITY LINK: There are 3 activities: 1) children observe a newspaper with colored paper moths and count and record the colors and numbers of each, 2) children cut out white paper butterfly shapes, camouflage them with colors, and hide them from predators in the classroom, and 3) children form 2 bird flocks and go outdoors to catch make-believe “worms.”
OBJECTIVE: Children will observe the diversity of model camouflaged animals and recognize and describe the adaptive advantages of camouflage.
SCIENCE PROCESSES AND CONTENT: Processes-observing, communicating, classifying, inferring, model building, defining operationally, recognizing variables, and recording and interpreting data. Content-camouflage, predator-prey relationships, characteristics of organisms, diversity of living things, adaptations ensuring the long-term survival of living species, and energy flow in an ecosystem.
NATIONAL SCIENCE EDUCATION STANDARDS: Unifying Concepts and Processes, (1) Science as Inquiry, (3) Life Science, (6) Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
MATERIALS: Newspaper with different colored moth-shaped paper affixed to it, butterfly shapes cut from white paper, crayons or colored markers, pieces of yarn—brown, green, and yellow cut into 7 to 8 cm lengths, cellophane tape
PROCEDURE:
1. Read the book How to Hide a Butterfly challenging the children to find the insects and spiders in the pictures, discussing possible predators and the predator-prey relationship, and the difficulty that a predator may have in finding a prey that is camouflaged.
2. For the activity, Missing Moth, take a single newspaper (a habitat), cut out and fasten with cellophane tape 4 different-colored paper moths (e.g. pink, green, yellow, and newsprint) in quantities of 4 or 5 each to the newspaper. Keeping the newspaper hidden from view until now, invite the children to observe the newspaper habitat for 5 to 10 seconds and record what they saw---how many moths and what color they were. Discuss their data, then show them the newspaper habitat again, this time counting the moths and recording their numbers again. Note that most will not see the newsprint moths. Discuss camouflage.
3. For the activity, Hide A Butterfly, have the children each cut out one butterfly shape from white paper. Give them crayons to color the butterflies so that they can are camouflaged and can be hidden somewhere in the classroom. Divide the class into two, having one group, the “predators,” hide their eyes or step out into the hallway until the “prey” group tapes their butterflies in places that are camouflaged but not completely hidden from view. The predators are then given 3 minutes to hunt for and capture the camouflaged butterflies. Those that survive are camouflaged best and represent butterflies likely to survive successfully over a longer period of time.
4. The final activity is called Birds and Worms. For this activity, cut 3 different strings of colored yarn into pieces 8 to 10 cm in length and scatter them in an outdoor habitat of approximately 8m X 8m out of sight of the children. Take the children near the outdoor habitat, then form them into two columns or flocks of birds, which can be named, e.g. robins, screech owls, or bluebirds. Have the first child in each column “fly” out (they can flap their wings), collect one worm, fly back to tag the next child in the column, who then flies out to capture a worm. Returning birds keep their worms and return to the back of the column. When all children have had a turn, have them place their worms on a sheet of paper in bar graph formation, green above green, yellow above yellow, and so on. Discuss with the students the color of worm most found, least found, which were best camouflaged, the advantages of camouflage, and what might happen if the environment suddenly changed color, e.g. from brown to green or vice versa.
RELATED BOOKS:
What Color Is Camouflage? by Carolyn Otto, Harper Collins Publishers, 1996. ISBN 0-06-445160-7
Hiding in Plain Sight by Paul Fehlner, Harcourt Brace. ISBN 0-15-308205-4
Hide and Snake by Keith Baker, Harcourt Brace, 1991. ISBN 0-15-200225-1
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