This lesson should be taught in March-June when the falcon cam livestream is available. If that is not possible, you can use the prerecorded falcon cam clips.

Hand out the journals. Explain that students will be watching the life cycles of falcons through the falcon cam livestream and will use the journals to document observations.

As a class, go through the About Falcons sections and the Falcon Curriculum videos. Note important vocabulary needed to make accurate observations (nesting, pair bonding, clutch, incubation, pip, eyas, fledge, etc.). You can either hand out a glossary or have students put them in the back of their journal themselves.

Have them illustrate life cycle charts for the falcons, including egg, chick, juvenile, and adult, in the journal so they have a reference.

Give them a standard way to document each observation and do them as a class:

1. Date
2. Time (Start watching – end watching)
3. Weather
4. What happens in the nest box
   1. Adult falcons present?
      1. Can you identify if it’s the male, female, or a floater?
      2. What behaviors are they exhibiting? (Pair bonding? Prey deliveries? Incubation? Nest defense? Preening? Loafing? Sleeping?)
   2. Offspring? If so, what stage of the life cycle chart?
      1. Eggs present?
         1. When were they laid? (Check the @DuBoisFalcons Twitter account for the most accurate information about that)
         2. How many?
         3. What do they look like?
         4. Are they being incubated? (Hard incubation does not start until the second-to-last egg is laid.)
         5. Are they being enfluffeled?
         6. Do you see signs of hatching? (Approximately 28 days to hatch) Have students estimate when the eggs will hatch.
      2. Chicks present?
         1. When did they start hatching? When did they hatch?
         2. How many?
         3. What do they look like?
         4. What behaviors are they exhibiting? (Prey deliveries? Preening? Sleeping? Scooting? Walking?)
         5. Banding?
            1. Mark down the bands of each chick and whether it’s a male or female.
         6. Do you see signs of getting ready to fledge? (Juvenile feathers, branching, lots of flapping exercises, etc.) Have students estimate when the chicks will fledge.
      3. Juveniles present?
         1. When did they fledge?
         2. What do they look like?
         3. What behaviors are they exhibiting?

Follow @DuBoisFalcons for updates, and tweet if students have any questions about the nesting season. Additionally, as a class, participate in the chick naming contest. The contest is always announced on Twitter on Banding Day.

Falcon Curriculum Core Categories

Anatomy and Life Cycle
Animal Behavior
Geography

Falcon Curriculum Essential Question

What traits do falcons inherit from their parents, and how do they vary? What traits are results from a direct interaction with the environment?

Materials

Sample Plan

This lesson is meant to be taught in conjunction with 3-LS1-1. As students watch the falcon cam livestream, have them observe and document what traits the chicks inherit from their parents. This will become more prominent as they get older and start to develop juvenile feathers and the signature stripes on their faces.

Take a look at the @CalFalconCam Twitter account and associated cameras and YouTube footage, paying particular attention to the 2022 season’s male falcon, Alden. Alden is distinguishable because he has a limp. Discuss how this is not an inherited trait; it is the result from a direct interaction with the environment (could have been a predator, hitting something, etc.).

Have students watch one of the FalConference: Birds of Prey with Tom Ricardi videos. Tom Ricardi is a licensed raptor rehabilitator who runs Massachusetts Birds of Prey Rehabilitation Center in Conway, Massachusetts. The birds that he shows off in the videos are birds that have traits caused by direct interactions with the environment (i.e. hit by a car, etc.) and are non-releasable because of it.

Falcon Curriculum Core Categories

Anatomy and Life Cycle
Animal Behavior
Geography

Falcon Curriculum Essential Question

How can variations in characteristics of peregrine falcons provide advantages in their survival and reproduction in their particular environment?

Materials

Sample Plan

This lesson is meant to be taught in conjunction with 3-LS1-1. Once students have learned all about peregrine falcons and their characteristics, they can then examine how those characteristics provide advantages.

Watch the LEGO Birds video on how to build different types of birds out of LEGOs. Without looking at each other’s work, have students each build their own interpretation of a peregrine falcon. When everyone is finished, have students all show each other their work. There should be quite a variation in the way they look.

After viewing all the LEGO birds, as a class, discuss how all their models are of peregrine falcons, but they all look somewhat different. Discuss some of the basic characteristics of peregrine falcons that all their models should have in common: basic color, size, wing shape, beak shape, eyes, feet/talons, etc. Ask students what advantages those characteristics provide (camouflage, speed, better for hunting prey, etc.). Ask what would happen if a falcon were larger/smaller than average (may help depending on size of prey in their region), darker/lighter in color (lighter colors would be useful if the falcons lived farther north to blend in better), etc.

Falcon Curriculum Core Categories

Conservation and Policy

Falcon Curriculum Essential Question

How did DDT change the peregrine falcon’s habitat and affect its ability to survive and reproduce?

Materials

Sample Plan

Watch the Falcon Curriculum: Conservation, Beginner videos. Talk about how humans used DDT to change the environment by getting rid of insects that ate their crops and made them sick, but DDT was bad for the environment, and when peregrine falcons ate the birds that ate the bugs that had DDT on them, it made the falcons lay eggs that couldn’t hatch.

Do the Soft Shelled Egg Experiment:

1. Explain/review the Scientific Method: a process with a set of steps that scientists use to study the world around them and solve problems.
2. Put students into groups. Let them examine the egg. Have them fill out a Scientific Method sheet:
   1. Ask a question, based on observations: Scientists observed that peregrine falcon eggs affected by DDT did not hatch. Why didn’t DDT-affected eggs hatch? (Observe what regular eggs that can hatch look and feel like.)
   2. Make a hypothesis (prediction): If the eggs don’t have strong eggshells to protect the chicks, then the eggs won’t hatch.
   3. Test the hypothesis:
      1. Examine the egg and record observations (shell is hard, etc.)
      2. Pour 1 cup vinegar into clear jar.
      3. Add the egg.
      4. Talk about what happens (bubbles will rise from the egg) and what they think might happen after it sits in the vinegar for 1 day.
      5. Leave the egg in the vinegar for 1 day.
      6. Remove the egg and record observations (shell is soft). IMPORTANT: Make sure the students are gentle with it when they touch it, or it will break all over.
   4. Analyze the data: Compare regular eggs to the ones in the vinegar. Regular eggs have hard shells sturdy enough to protect the chicks and withstand parents sitting on them to incubate them. Vinegar dissolves the calcium in the eggshells, leaving the eggs with just the soft eggshell lining.
   5. Draw conclusions: DDT affected the calcium content peregrine falcons had, which made them lay eggs with soft shells that couldn’t protect the chicks, so they couldn’t hatch. Since the eggs couldn’t hatch, the falcon population declined.
   6. Communicate findings: Do a poster sharing the data.