Bird Watching A Middle School Biology STEM Lesson Plan

Feb 6, 2024

Middle School Biology Lesson on Bird Watching

This is the 18th lesson in a series of 32 hands-on Christian lessons covering middle school biology. This lesson focuses on bird features. Test beak types, examine nests and eggs, play Bird Field Guide 20 Questions, & more. I used this plan while teaching a 55 minute middle school biology class. Each lesson plan includes homework assignments and a variety of hands-on activities to make each lesson engaging & memorable. Use these fun lessons with your classroom, homeschool, after-school program, or co-op!

These lessons are written for a class that meets once a week. If your class meets 5 days a week, simply do this lesson one day a week and use the homework assignments (at the bottom of the page) for the work for the other days of the week.

Homework Review

Hand out extra credit tickets to anyone who did the extra credit.

Quickly go over the homework questions. (I give out tickets for students who answer the questions.)

Collect Weird Bird Reports.

Birding Expert Guest Speaker & Alternative Options

Showing the anatomy of a bird

For today’s class we invited a local bird watching guide to speak to our class about the amazing design of birds and how to get started with bird watching.

If this isn’t an option, you could just do what he did with our class, which I listed below. Alternately, you could ask someone else to speak to your class such as a pet store owner, someone who works with birds through a wild animal rescue, or someone who has a pet birds and loves sharing about them. One year we had the wife of hunter come to our class. She brought various mounted birds and discussed how her husband and sons hunt them and what they do afterward. The students loved hearing their turkey caller and attempting to make duck and turkey sounds.

One year we had a “Bird Show & Tell” and had students bring in birds, parts of birds, & bird-related items and present on what they brought.

If allowed, you could instead take a field trip to a local zoo, pet store, nature-type area for bird watching, or chicken farm.

Bird Watching Expert

Showing bird head skeletons to compare beaks along with owl pellets

Our guest speaker was someone who has led numerous bird-watching expeditions. I told him that the students love getting to see objects. This is what he did:

Go over the basic anatomy of a bird and a few neat facts about some of the birds in our area. He included lots of silly bird jokes and asked lots of questions, like a trivia game.

Discuss how to get started with bird watching.

Show field guides and discuss how they differ and which is easiest to use.

Discuss bird songs. Play some. Have the students try to identify the bird.

Discuss field marks and what you should notice on a bird.

Talk about how to learn the birds you see in your yard.

Discuss what you can bring while looking for birds.

Pass around various bird-related items such as bird head skeletons (to compare beaks) and owl pellets from different owls.

Ask students about their experiences with birds and answer any questions.

Comparing the beaks on bird skeletons

A Beka’s Science: Order & Design science textbook

Homework

Page numbers refer to the pages in A Beka’s Science: Order & Design.

Friday: Read pp. 278-288 (skipping Science Investigation on pp. 284-285) & answer 4 questions of your choice on p. 288.

Monday: Read pp. 290-298 & answer 3 questions of your choice on p. 298.

Tuesday: Color Anatomy of a Fish Part I

Wednesday: Color Part III Anatomy of a Fish and then try to count the rings from Part II to see how old the fish was. You do NOT need to color the rings on the scale.