Migration Math Madness
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Migration Math Madness Adapted with permission from five corridors or “highways” in the American Golden-Plover that “Seasonal Wetlands.” Santa Clara the sky. By using the migration flies 4350 miles nonstop, twice each Audubon Society. “Salt Marsh map provided, they measure year, between South America and Manual: An Educator’s Guide.” and calculate the distances some Northern Canada and the Alaskan San Francisco Bay National shorebirds travel and come to tundra. Physical feats like this are Wildlife Refuge. understand why shorebirds must common in the world of shorebirds. stop to feed and rest along the way. Pectoral Sandpipers winter in Grade Level: upper elementary/ Southern South America but breed middle school Objectives as far west as Central Siberia. Duration: one 30-minute class After this activity, students will be Some plovers, curlews, and tattlers period able to: fly nonstop from Hawaii and other Skills: collection, comparison, ■ Define the term isotherm. Pacific Islands to Alaska in two or and interpretation of data; using ■ Describe the routes of the three days, a distance of over 3500 technology (with additional activity) shorebird flyways that run along miles! Subjects: science, math, and social or through the continental United studies; geography and technology States. To migrate successfully, many (with additional activities) ■ Calculate the migration distances shorebirds stop to rest and feed of two shorebirds. along the way at wetlands and Concepts: ■ Explain why wetland stopover grasslands. These stopover sites ■ During each year of their lives, sites are critical to shorebird provide critical food resources that most shorebirds migrate between migration. give the birds energy to continue habitats located in different the race to their northern breeding geographic areas. grounds. ■ Shorebirds migrate between Materials northern breeding areas and ■ Twenty-centimeters pieces of To learn more about shorebird southern wintering areas to string (one per student or group) migration, read Magnificent take advantage of seasonal food ■ One set of Migration Math Map Shorebird Migration found in the resources. Worksheets and the Migration Shorebird Primer. ■ Arctic-nesting shorebirds Madness reading for each student undertake some of the longest ■ Pens or crayons for each student Activity Preparation migrations of any animals. 1. Review the Migration Math ■ Migratory shorebirds depend on Introduction Map Worksheets provided. habitat in at least three areas: Shorebird migration is perhaps Decide which flyway(s) you will breeding, nonbreeding, and one of the most spectacular wildlife emphasize. You may choose to migratory stopover sites. events known to biologists today. have each student complete all ■ Shorebirds concentrate in great It is now thought that the seasonal three worksheets or divide the numbers at their stopover sites. movement of shorebirds, from class into three groups, each their warm, winter habitat world focusing on a different flyway. Vocabulary to the brutal environment of the 2. Make photocopies so each ■ Central Flyway Arctic tundra, is an adaptation student has at least one activity ■ Atlantic Flyway for survival. Their migration to sheet. ■ Pacific Flyway the Arctic allows them to take 3. Make one photocopy of the ■ isotherm advantage of the abundant, seasonal Migration Madness reading for ■ flyway invertebrate food resources in an each student. ■ stopover site area of the world relatively low ■ wintering area in predators and competitors. In Procedure ■ nesting area addition, the vast open space of the 1. Have your class review ■ wetland Arctic provides much more habitat Migration Madness. ■ migration for breeding and nesting than their wintering area, and there are many 2. Pass out one piece of string 20 Overview more hours of daylight to feed. centimeters long to each student. Students discover that shorebirds Instruct the student to place migrate long distances between There would have to be an the end of the string at the start northern breeding grounds and advantage to shorebirds for them to of one of the migratory paths southern breeding habitats, using expend so much energy. Consider drawn on the map. He or she S H O R E B I R D S M 321 I Explore the World with Shorebirds! S A T R ER G S RO CHOOLS P should lay the string along the Have students work together to ■ Australasian Wader Study path so that it follows it exactly. draw a world map on butcher paper. Group Web site http: At the end of the path, mark the Hang up the map on a classroom //www.tasweb.com.au/awsg/ string with a crayon or marker. wall. Next divide the students into index.htm five teams. Assign each team to ■ Birds of Australia Web site 3. This string is now marked at the one of the five flyways. Instruct www.birdsaustralia.com.au same length as the line on the each team to select three to five ■ Shorebird Education of map. Instruct the students to shorebirds that use the flyway it Australia Web site http:// compare this piece or pieces of is assigned and then research the www.wetlands.org.au/shorebirds/ marked string with the mileage migration routes of each shorebird ■ Japan’s Shorebird Education scale to estimate how many miles and add to the world map. Project Web site http:// the bird traveled. www.chidori.jp/education/ *Note: Students who study 4. Ask the students to convert shorebirds in the Eastern the mileage into kilometers. Hemisphere will have to do Remember that 1 mile = 1.609 additional Web searches for km. If you start with kilometers information on those species (km), 1 km = 0.621 miles. because they are not included in the Shorebird Profiles. A short list 5. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the of species that use the East Asian- other paths shown on the map. Australasian and Central Pacific Students should write their Flyways can be found in the flyway answers in the spaces provided. section of The Shorebird Primer. 6. Now have them calculate how Ask them to write a short long it would take these birds biography of the bird that includes to reach their nesting habitat at the following and add it to the wall. 40 miles per day, at 72 miles per ■ a picture or drawing of the day, at 150 miles per day. shorebird ■ the distance they travel during Additional Activity migration Geography Along the Flyway ■ the critical stopover sites they use As students plot the migration along the way (if known) of the birds on the migration ■ its food preferences map, have them also include what ■ the types of wetland habitat they countries the birds fly through. use World Migration Map Resources Students While Migration Math Madness Can Use Include: focused on the three flyways in the ■ Bird identification guides Western Hemisphere, there are recommended in the Appendix of actually five shorebird flyways. this guide The two additional flyways are in ■ Shorebird Sister Schools Web the Eastern Hemisphere, but some site http://sssp.fws.gov; go to the of the shorebirds in those flyways “Flyways” link breed in the North American ■ Prairies to Patagonia Web Arctic of Canada and Alaska. site http://www.manomet.org/ Introduce these additional flyways WHSRN/Prairies/index.htm to your students by referring ■ USGS Biogeographical Profiles to the map in this activity and http:// www.mesc.usgs.gov/ flyway descriptions located on the products/pubs/555/555.asp (then Shorebird Sister Schools Web site scroll down and click on “species at http://sssp.fws.gov. profiles.”) S H O R E B I R D S M 322 I Explore the World with Shorebirds! S A T R ER G S RO CHOOLS P Migration Madness Migrating birds travel long The migratory routes of birds, Wetland stopover sites are distances between wintering and referred to as flyways, are not important to shorebirds because nesting areas. Most birds do not specific, narrow “highways,” but they provide areas to feed and rest fly nonstop between these areas, general routes that most migrants along their migration routes. If a although many are capable of tend to follow. Most shorebird bird flies between Argentina and doing so. Timing of the migration flyways follow the shoreline habitat Alaska, it will cover between 7000 is related to seasonal temperature the birds prefer. and 8000 air miles. Without local changes but is first triggered by wetlands, many birds would not get changes in the amount of daylight. ■ In North America shorebirds also enough food energy to make the migrate inland along the Central entire trip. During the spring, most birds do Flyway that follows freshwater not migrate north faster than the river systems. Birds, like fish, can move in three- 35°Fahrenheit (F) isotherm moves. ■ Many other shorebirds migrate dimensional space. This means This isotherm is an imaginary, on the Atlantic Flyway, traveling that besides moving across the moving line that represents air from the southernmost tip of earth they also can change altitude. temperature at any one specific Argentina, along the American About 15 percent of shorebirds time. The area north of this line is Atlantic Coast up to Canada. migrate at elevations below 10,000 cooler than 35°F, and the area south ■ One of the major routes used feet. However, pilots have observed of it is warmer than 35°F. Migrating by Alaskan Arctic-nesting many shorebirds flying at about behind the isotherm ensures that shorebirds is the Pacific Flyway, 29,000 feet! when the birds reach their nesting a path between South or Central areas, the water and ground will American wintering areas and As they get closer to their northern not be frozen. nesting areas in the Arctic nesting grounds, shorebirds begin regions of Alaska and Canada. to fly faster. Weather and timing In the fall, temperatures affect ■ The Central Pacific Flyway become critical factors in getting the amount of food available to extends across the ocean from nests built and young raised in shorebirds.