Bald Eagles

For our final week of our USA unit, we pulled in our science curriculum and talked about the rose, the oak tree, and the bald eagle, with most of our time and efforts placed on the eagle. First we focused on the history of the bald eagle--how it became our national bird, (instead of the wild turkey as Ben Franklin proposed) and how it was saved from the DDT poisoning and brought back from near extinction. Then we simply turned our lessons over to studying the actual bird--how and where they live, what they eat, how they fly, etc. As part of our unit we took two excellent field trips. First, we went over to the Zollman Zoo, a small local zoo that is only a few miles from our home. They have two bald eagles as well as a golden eagle. Our main purpose for going; however, was the life size replica of an eagle's nest that sits at the entrance to the park. We studied what the nest was made out of, measured it with Spencer's tool set tape measure, and examined the eggs inside of it.



Our second field trip was a little more extravagant. This time, we drove almost an hour to the little town of Wabasha, Mn. The National Eagle Center is located in Wabasha right on a fork in the Mississippi River where tons of eagles congregate in the Wintertime. The Eagle Center has all sorts of eagle information and activities, they have an eagle presentation where you get to feed the eagles lunch, and you can get your photo made with one of their eagles.




(We all look pretty stellar in this picture since we went straight to the Eagle Center after camping!)

This field trip capped off our eagle week as well as our USA Unit.

Note: When giving the eagle quiz at the end of the unit, it's cute to pretend the kids are little eagles and give them gold-"fishies" for every question they get right.
Also, this is a good time to list and talk about other "Birds of Prey" as they are all very similar in nature.