Decorah Eagles of the Raptor Resource Project Continue to Teach and Entertain

Petrarchan47 at English Wikipedia, Creative Commons

Spring is the time when we greet new life and through the first half of the year there is a great opportunity to observe nesting Bald Eagles through the Raptor Resource Project's live stream eagle cam. The Raptor Resource Project put out their first eagle cam in 2007. The camera is fixed atop a tree housing an eagle nest in Decorah, Iowa. In 2011 they switched over to a Ustream live stream and the project went viral. I'll admit I was one of those people watching the camera as if it were a popular sitcom. It is addictive!

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If you tune into the live streaming video in your classroom or home, you might see the parent eagles bringing food to the chicks, preening, or cleaning up the nest. You'll see this majestic bird gently tuck her babies under her body to keep them warm. With night vision, the video continues 24 hours a day so we can all watch the comings and goings of both parents.

     

Throughout the years as more and more people tune in, more opportunities for education and sharing of educational projects surrounding the eagle cam are coming about. The Raptor Resource Project is hosting two forums that will be great resources for those of you who would like to use this in your school or home classrooms. The first forum is "Links to Eagle Activities for Teachers, Parents and Grandparents" and the second is "Education in Action" a place to share how you are using the eagle cam in the classroom and to get new ideas from others.

I found in years past that if I was teaching in a room where we had a projector or a spare computer set up that having the video streaming throughout the day was not a major distraction during the student's work and allowed for some great discussion as teachable moments came up on screen. Unfortunately, there are now advertisements on the feed, so be aware of this if you are using it in your classroom. If you pay for a Ustream membership you can avoid the ads. 

Watching the eagles gives so many opportunities for learning. Science topics such as food webs, ornithology, animal behavior, ecology and wildlife biology are fairly apparent. The story of the Bald Eagle as a national symbol and the Endangered Species Act are great ways to incorporate this project into social studies, government and history.

In addition to the live feed, the Raptor Resource Center Youtube page, Raptor Resource blog, and the forums you may wish to check out these related books: "Three Little Eagles and How They Grew: Jacob's Story Decorah eagles" is the story of a boy who fell in love with watching video of the Decorah Eagles. "Decorah Eagles: A Love Story" a photographic account of the Decorah Eagle pair, and "Bald Eagle Nest: A Story of Survival in Photos" a beautiful photographic story of a pair of Bald Eagles in Montana.

Eagle Resources:

• The Raptor Resource Project
• Decorah Eagles streaming video on Ustream
• Links to Eagle Activities for Teachers, Parents and Grandparents 
• Education in Action: Ideas for the Classroom
• The Raptor Resource Project Blog
• The Raptor Resource Project on Youtube      

Saturday Science Experiment: Eggs and Toilet Paper Rolls

This weekend we'll explore two different experiments that use similar principles. Both are challenges to see how much weight an object can support. You'll need raw eggs, or toilet paper tubes (paper towel tubes work too!) You might even want to try this with both.

The challenge: to see how much weight empty eggshells or toilet paper tubes can hold.  If you choose to use egg shells you'll need to empty them first. Sounds like a good project to do after a delicious hot breakfast! After breaking the eggs by tapping them on one end, clean them out really well. You'll need 4 egg shell halves, approximately the same height. You'll want to be careful to not make any large fissure cracks on the eggs. When your egg halves are ready, put them open-side down on a flat surface like a table or counter. Make a prediction- how much weight can the eggshells hold?

Large books are good to use as weight. See how many you can stack on top. What happens if you stack other things on top of the books, like cans of soup? Try it out! Check out the Science Sparks version of this experiment for some hints, tips and pictures of how to be successful with this experiment.

You might also like this Steve Spangler experiment- "Walking on Eggs" although you will need many more eggs to complete it. Why do these experiments work? The dome shape of the egg helps to distribute the weight. Can you brainstorm other places where similar shapes are holding large amounts of weight?

Another variation of this is to see how much weight toilet paper tubes can hold up. Place several toilet paper tubes vertically on a flat surface. Begin adding weight to the top. Make a hypothesis about how much weight you can add without crushing the tubes. If you have someone to spot you, will the toilet paper tubes hold your weight? How many toilet paper tubes do you need to hold your weight? Do you think the column shape of the tubes is a strong shape?

This is a great introduction to design in load bearing structures. Next time you observe a bridge or a construction site see if you can find these shapes with your kids. I would love to hear the results of your experiments. If you try this out, comment below!