Activities and Lesson Plans

Teachers!   Welcome to the Albatross Project Classroom Activities page!  We hope that you will enjoy using the Albatross Project and the ideas below to stimulate student interest in real world applications for science, math, and geography.  This information can be used to enhance writing, literature, art, team building, and creative thinking skills in your students as well.  Several activities are available in this website for you to use either in the classroom or in an outdoor setting.  If these activities stimulate new ideas for related activities or projects in your classroom, please let us know by email at ann_hudgins@fws.gov.  We will strive to add to and improve upon this site as new ideas and information become available.  This part of the website, devoted to ideas for classroom activities, is a joint effort of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Honolulu and Kilauea Point Offices, and Wake Forest University.

A background information page will assist you in leading the activities found here. It includes a short history of the project, questions we hope to answer with this project, and some fun facts and ideas to help you relate this project to the everyday lives of your students.  Each activity includes the appropriate grade level, subjects covered, performance standards achieved, materials you will need, the suggested procedure to perform the activity, suggestions for comparisons, and related activities.

The activities listed here are targeted to 6^th grade students but can be modified to fit your needs or grade level.  Several activities that are targeted at 7^th – 12^th grades are listed in FLY HIGH.

Each of the items in the list of lesson plans and classroom activities below links to a full description of materials, methods, time requirements, and performance standards.  You should be able to fully explain each of these subjects by accomplishing the activities suggested.  (We're still developing these, so check back periodically, and send in your own great ideas PLEASE .)

Activity Categories

Adaptations
  How Big Are Your Wings?  Why do birds have wings and we do not?   The students will compare mammalian body parts to avian body parts and discuss how species have developed different survival techniques.

  Adaptable Mandibles.  A GAME that you can play in class that demonstrates ecosystem interactions and how organisms become fitted to their environments

Mapping
  Where in the World Am I?  How to explain latitude and longitude?  The students will develop the skills needed to find locations on maps using latitude and longitude, and how to plot locations.

Scientific Method
  Graph-A-Tross!  Learn how to make visual representations of scientific data.  Real data on albatross numbers at Kilauea Point are provided. 

Art
  Albatross Eye Shadow.  Draw the form of an albatross, with the interesting shades of color around the head.  Experiment with techniques to reproduce these effects on paper.

Populations
  Walk a Mile in Albatross Shoes, and learn lots of math, science, and communication skills in the process of learning about pollution and how eating plastic affects albatrosses in real life.

FLY HIGH!
  Fly High has suggestions for in-depth and more extended activities that might be useful for older students.