Bird Detectives

20 min | Welcome & Introductory Game
• Play the ‘Bird Behavior Game” (a variation on Freeze Dance): When the instructor calls out a particular type of bird (such as a hawk or a thrush), students act out the movement associated with that bird; when the instructor calls out ‘predator’ the students freeze

20 min | Birdwatching
• Led by an expert birder, students use binoculars while exploring Hillwood’s gardens to find and identify birds in the garden; students note the birds they find on a tally sheet

20 min | Bird Food Scavenger Hunt
• Students explore Hillwood’s Cutting Garden to discover various bird food sources (seeds, berries, insects, etc.)
• Students engage with hands-on models and props representing bird food sources (bag of sunflower seeds, toy worms, etc.) and compare them to the food sources in the garden

30 min | Workshop
• Students make a bar graph based on the data collected on their tally sheet of birds observed in the gardens
• Students illustrate their graph with an artistic representation of a bird habitat, based on the things they observed in the garden that birds need to make a safe home