The following lessons are recommended to reinforce the concepts introduced in The Evolution of Flight in Birds module.
What
did T. rex Taste Like?
This UCMP Web module provides a simple and engaging introduction to cladistics. Specifically students learn
about common ancestry, mapping inherited features, and interpreting cladograms
to develop hypotheses about past life and evolutionary relationships.
Flying High - Bird Man:
Some of the experiments of Dr. Ken Dial can be simulated using an inexpensive ornithopter model called Tim Bird. These two activities
are part of the Scientific American Frontiers Archive designed for educators, and based upon a PBS series on flight.
Yale-New
Haven Teacher Institute Curriculum Unit on Birds
This is a curriculum unit on the science of flight, developed by the Yale-New Haven Teacher Instiute. Use sections 1 and 2 to outline a lesson plan on feathers
and flight. Section 3 provides an extension unit on gliders, including directions
for building a small student version of one.
Selection
and Variation in the Egyptian Origami Bird:
This is an activity developed by Karen Westerlin and posted on the Access Excellence Web site. In order to examine the random nature of mutations and natural selection, students
"breed" clutches of Egyptian Origami Birds (that is, they construct
paper airplanes) using random number generators (dice and coins) to mutate several
genetic loci: anterior and posterior wing position, wing width, wing length.
After several generations, students usually note a significant increase in flight
distance and duration.