barn r swallow e eastern r meadowlark n o i big l s black-eyed bluestem p n Susan x o E c p s i u W + eastern cottontail 9 r thirteen-lined e s ground squirrel r n e i o l s g n p x a o c E s s i d W i K EXPLORing THE r e r n o i EXTREMES l s s p n x o E c r s i e W American r badger Wisconsin's o l State Animal p badger holes r x e r n i o E badger l s tracks p n badger x o scat c E s i n W i s n your name o r e r c date n o i l s s p n x Name of park o i E c s i W W Wisconsin State Parks, Forests, Trails, and Recreation Areas Have fun! Explore! collect a patch! Look at all these things you can do. Pick something and do it! Search up in the sky (page 3). Make a swallow (page 5). Search for extreme eaters (page 7). Collect soil samples (page 8). Find nocturnal insects (pages 10-11). Navigate like a moth (page 12). Watch while you wait (page 13). Search on the edge of day and night (page 15). Search on the edge of roads (page 16). See invisible underwater animals (page 18). Search for a sinistral snail (page 19). Search for EAOPs (page 24). fi lled with Test mosquito-avoidance tactics (page 25). Borrow an explorer Pack! Find extreme survivors (page 26). Ask park staff for a pack To earn a patch: exploring tools and books. Complete 7 to 14 of the explorations listed above. Attend a nature program or take a nature hike. Watch for milfoil (p. 20), check your green score (pp. 22-23), or save the natives (p. 27). Fill out the evaluation form with a grown-up (found on colored insert of this booklet). To receive your patch (choose one method): Give your evaluation to a park staff person and tell him/her what you did. Mail your evaluation form, along with name and address, to: Wisconsin Explorers PR/6, Department of Natural Resources, P.O. Box 7921, Madison, WI 53707. The patch will arrive in 2-4 weeks. If you misplaced your evaluation form, visit <www.wiparks.net> and search for “Wisconsin Explorers.” We love getting letters and drawings about your explorations! For more information, call (608) 266-2181 or email [email protected] The Wisconsin Explorers program is an interpretive program of the Wisconsin State Park System made possible by the generous support of the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin and the following donors: Bong Naturalist Association, Friends of Buckhorn State Park, Friends of Devil’s Lake State Park, Friends of Hartman Creek State Park, Friends of Interstate Park, Friends of Kettle Moraine, Inc., Friends of Kohler-Andrae State Park, Friends of New Glarus Woods State Park, Friends of Rock Island State Park, Friends of Whitefi sh Dunes State Park, Menasha Corporation Foundation, R.D. & Linda Peters Foundation, and one very generous anonymous donor. Wisconsin Explorers - Discovering Secrets (Ages 9+up) © 2009 Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources - PUBL-PR-480 2019 Written and designed by Beth Mittermaier Exploring the Extremes . Up in the sky To fi nd out what lives way up there, you’re going to have to do some exploring. Try these ideas. Use words or pictures to describe what you fi nd. Look at night Check out cars Shine a bright fl ashlight up into the sky. What do you see? Windshields and grills collect a lot of things that fl y. Can you identify any of the remains? Search near water Hike in the woods Many small insects and the fl ying things that eat them zoom Find a shaft of light in the woods. Do you see insects, dust, or over water. Look for an aerial food chain in action. pollen fl oating in the sunlight? Think about it Field Notes Here are some things to think about when you can’t sleep! Aeroplankton In an ocean fi lled with water, you A lot of animals live up there in the air above us. Where do fi nd extremely small would expect to fl oating they go to the bathroom? plants and animals (plankton) ocean of air, you can Many spiders eat their old webs to recycle in the water. In an the silk. If pollen, spores, and other tiny expect the same thing. Tiny lifeforms things get stuck in the sticky part of the that live in the air are called web, does the spider know it’s getting extra aeroplankton. Aeroplankton nutrition? includes micro-insects and spiders, bacteria, pollen, Imagine you are sitting outdoors at a magnifi ed spores, viruses, mold, ballgame or picnic. Suddenly there is a little algae, and wind- pollen wind-blown insect or spider crawling on you. You look scattered seeds. aphid up. There is nothing above you. How did it get there? © 2009 WI Department of Natural Resources - Wisconsin Explorers - exploring the extremes (Ages 9 and up) 3 Invent an airborne critter Animals that spend most of their time in the air have special features and behaviors that help them survive. Think about these aerial adaptations. silken “wings” skin wings Young spiders release Bats’ “fi nger” bones super wings enough silk from their are really long. Unlike most insects’ spinnerets to lift and Skin stretched wings, dragonfl ies’ wings carry them to new between the move independently from places. bones makes each other. This allows fl ight possible. dragonfl ies to fl y forward, backward, up, and down. They can also hover and make sharp turns. large fl at wings high speed wings Whooping cranes, Swallows and nighthawks hawks, and vultures can fl y fast and change can soar upward on directions quickly as hovering wings rising columns of warm they catch and eat fl ying Hummingbirds can use their small air (thermals). Watch for insects on the wing. wings and fl exible shoulders to groups of birds fl ying in hover over fl owers while they sip upward spirals. nectar. Draw your critter If you could invent an airborne creature, what kind of animal would you make? A bird, a mammal, an insect, or something else? How big is it? Does it fl y or glide? What does it eat? Does it have any predators? Draw a picture of the new animal and tell about its special adaptations. 4 © 2009 WI Department of Natural Resources - Wisconsin Explorers - exploring the extremes (Ages 9 and up) make a swallow cliff swallow Birds have perfected fl ight. People are still learning. Make this bird from a regular-sized piece of paper (8 1/2” X 11”) and watch it soar! tail piece body tree piece 3. Fold along second swallow dashed line so your bird looks like this. 2. Fold body along 1. Cut or tear off about dashed line. 1 1/2” to make tail. 4. Open fl at a and fold back along horizontal 6. Follow these steps 7. Fold and dashed 5. Fold sides (see arrows for right side. Fold unfold along b line. at step 4) to collapse the top point down along dashed lines (a Unfold. two triangles on top of dashed line. and b). each other. 9. Fold peak 10. Repeat steps 6 down so the through 9 with the right side of left side. your bird looks like 8. Pinch at arrows– this. folding along dashed line–to form a peak. 12. Insert point of tail into swallow’s nose. Fold lower part back on dashed line to make head. 13. Fold bird and bottom tail in half on 11. To make tail, fold top dashed line. corners to make point. I explored the sky by . Looking up at night. Fly Your swallow Checking out car grills. Angle the wings as shown in step 13. Hold the swallow by the nose. Throw it straight up as hard as you can and Searching near water. watch it circle downwards. After you make the basic Hiking in the woods. design, start experimenting. Try different shapes of wings and tails. Try curling the wings. Which combinations fl y Inventing an airborne critter. best? Making a swallow. fi nd out More Check out The Secrets of Animal Flight by Nic Bishop. © 2009 WI Department of Natural Resources - Wisconsin Explorers - exploring the extremes (Ages 9 and up) 5 Exploring the Extremes . Under your feet There are some amazingly disgusting things that happen under the ground (and right on top of the ground) that you might not want to know about. If so, stop here and skip to page 8. Finish the food chain Some people get a little uncomfortable when talking about carnivores and predators, but that isn’t the really gross part of the food chain. It’s the things they don’t talk about in school that can turn a stomach. This is a typical food chain. With energy from the sun, the grass produces seeds. The vole eats the seeds. The massasauga rattlesnake eats the vole. The badger eats the snake. Discover the rest of the story The food chain doesn’t really get interesting until the badger dies. If it weren’t for scavengers (animals that feed on dead stuff), the earth would soon be covered with piles of dead plants and animals. When the scavengers are done, the decomposers (bacteria, fungi, millipedes, beetles, and worms) slowly turn dead things back into basic nutrients that plants can use to grow.