By Elizabeth Yount
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
Tree species can be identified by looking at several different features: leaves, bark, twigs, flowers, fruits and seeds, overall shape.Students will be able to identify trees using various structural characteristics. Students will create field guides for trees on school grounds. More 

By Christopher Burak
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
Students will be able to: distinguish songbird traits from other birds, recognize bird habitat, behaviors, field marks on birds, and identify songbirds in the wild. More 

By Elizabeth Yount
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
Students will create a “Three Cheers For Trees” bulletin board showing the benefits of trees in public places. They will brainstorm and list benefits, then cut out or draw pictures and write slogans depicting these benefits. More

By Martina Love
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
Students will know the parts of a leaf (decidious). Students will know that there are different types of leaves. Students will know the role of leaves in photosynthesis. More

By Amy Gavlik
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
Account for adaptations among organisms that live in a particular environment
Identify adaptations that allow organisms to survive in their environment
Explain how specific adaptations can help a living organism to survive
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By Joyce Hlawati
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
This is an introductory lesson about bird behaviors relating to adaptations to the environment each season. Vocabulary development is necessary. Daily observation and identification, using games and nonfiction materials, of the birds frequenting the school feeders, will give students data to record in their journals. More

Cindy Long
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
Discuss the similarities and differences between offspring and adults. Play “Are You Me?” Share life cycle information including vocabulary. In Language Arts class, read aloud story. Students will draw illustrations to visualize the story as it is read. Write own story using his/her visualization clues. Students will do water color of insect in art class. After naming insect, student will develop an acrostic poem giving facts about the insect. In math class, students will research heights of animals mentioned in the story and order them by height. More

Virginia Fennell
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
Students will write and illustrate a cartoon, depicting how a cow bird practices parasitism and conclude by drawing an ending to the scenario in small groups
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By Leslie Yount 
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
Students will understand what effects forest fragmentation has on brood parasitism. The students will also describe how nests of breeding songbirds are parasitized by cowbirds. Students will write a report on cowbirds and explain how to recognize their eggs. Students will also include how wildlife managers recommend dealing with cowbirds. More

By Susan Goetz
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
Birds play an important role in the food web and the ecosystem balance.
Birds are aesthetic and indicators of environmental health.
Many birds are insect eaters, both adult and inmature, seed dispersers, and food providers.
Birds maintain ecosystem balance participating in nutrient cycling.
Decline in songbirds can indicate a change in a habitat. More

By Margaret Columbus
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
The students will identify the patterms of change in a tree’s life by examining a tree cookie. They will be able to identify any stress or damage the tree incurred by looking at the rings. Students will create a tree cookie after listening to a story about a tree’s life. Students will include the key events at certain years in their cookie. More

By Margaret Columbus
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
Many parts of a tree work together to help the tree grow just like many workers in a factory work to create the final product.Students will create a model of a tree. Students will particape in a group activity creating all the parts of a tree. Students will write a 5 sentence summary in their science journal. More

By Martina Love
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
The students will learn the following things: They will learn that trees are made up of parts. They will learn that trees are dependent on air and water. They will learn that the components of a system play a part in a healthy natural system. The students will learn to identify and describe what parts make up a system (tree). They will learn to describe the functions of the different parts of a tree. They will learn how a tree obtains air and water. They will learn how a healthy tree protects itself from negative influences. And they will learn to identify things that can cause sickness in a tree. More

By Lisa DiCenzo
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
Students will study birds. They will learn to recognize observational descriptors using each of the five senses. They will learn that some organisms have similar external characteristics. More

By Andrea Hower
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
The students will identify things that cause sickness in organisms. The students will identify that human actions affect organisms. The students will identify environmental variables that affect plant growth. The students will identify how ecosystems change over time. More

By Judith Riska
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
The lesson will be introduced by reading “Take a Backyard Bird Walk.” This will serves a springboard for a discussion on visual markings such as behavior, size, shape, color, habitat and field markings. Students will be put into small groups equipped with a “bird journal worksheet”, binoculars, bird field guide and go bird watching around the school/nature center. More.

By Andrea Hower
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
Students will read Jane Kirkland’s book, Take a Backyard Bird Walk and discuss. They will learn what food sources attract certain bird species. They will complete the “Feeding Frenzy” activity from the Pennsylvania Songbirds curriculum. They will participate in Classroom Feeder Watch and Project Feeder Watch. More.

By Angel Bestwick
Pennsylvania Environment and Ecology Education
Students view illustration of a Rube Goldberg machine, use finger to trace the path of machine, identifying parts of machine. Pose the problem to the students describing a bird feeder perched high in a tree and ask could you design a system to carry seeds to the feeder. Groups of students work together to use K’NEX to build simple machines and identify simple machines. Afterward, direct students to design a system to transport seeds from ground to feeder. Feeder systems can be specific to bird’s food preference (i.e. cardinals prefer blackoil sunflower,grackles prefer cracked corn,etc.). Students draw a diagram of system. More.