February
2007
Bird brains0
Topics for group discussion, pupil presentations or blogging.
A great way to get young people talking about science is through blogging. There’s a blog on just about every topic you can imagine. A good safe place to start looking for schools active in blogging is Scotedublogs
This has a listing down the left-hand panel of school blogs grouped by local authority. Notice that Shropshire, despite what it says, is definitely not in Scotland. It’s like-minded teachers they want, not schools in particular locations.
There is not a lot on science there yet. But take a look at Commentsforkidz and get blogging with colleagues and pupils in schools around the world!
Links to free activities, resources and lesson plans
Teaching resources (UK US) designed specifically for this story at www.realscience.org.uk
To help students understand animal intelligence, have teams design an experiment in which they test a question related to animal behaviour. Work through one of the following: Do goldfish respond to music? Do dogs remember what happened a day earlier? Can cats plan for a future event?
Almost everything scientists thought they knew about bird brains being primitive and instinctive has been found to be wrong. Fully 75 % of the brains of parrots, hummingbirds etc. is a sophisticated information processing system that works much the same way as the cerebral cortex in humans. Take a look at a rotating model of a songbird’s brain. From Nova.
Meet scientist Erich Jarvis and hear why he finds bird brains so interesting.
Question and answer session with a bird-brain expert.
Some abilities are supposed to be unique to humans. The trouble is they keep turning up in animals too.
Have you ever wondered what makes humans different from rats, or wanted to see a cerebellum? Have you ever looked at a frog and wondered if it has a cortex? Do you want to know how intelligence is defined? From Serendip.
“Birds may have a reputation for being less than geniuses, but researchers are discovering that some are remarkably smart.” With links to interactives and learning games on animal emotions and social awareness. From PBS.
Lots of examples of bird intelligence.
Links to more links
Several of Prof Nicky Clayton’s papers on scrub jay intelligence in pdf form.
Links to lots of bird lessons and activities. From AOL.
