STEAM with
Ms. Amy

🦉 April 20: STEAM: Birds 🦅

How Birds Fly

Since we are learning about birds this week, I thought we would find out how birds fly

Here is a video showing the three steps birds must do in order to fly:
- take-off
- flap
- glide.

You might want to watch this video in an open space so you can imagine yourself as a bird and try to fly.

Could you make a bird that flies high in the sky? We need a balloon, feathers and clothespin, marker and tape. Start off with only putting 2 feathers on your "bird”. What happens if you add more feathers? Does the position of the feathers make a difference on how your bird flies?

Have you ever tried flying? There must be a reason why we can’t fly? The wings of a bird are longer and wider than the length of its body. Our arms are too thin and short to be able to lift us off the ground. Birds are also very, very light, and they have strong muscles in their wings. The average 4-year-old child is 50 times the weight of a common pigeon!

Imagine how much longer your wings would need to be for you to fly! You would need wings 1 ½ times as long as your body. Do you have a piece of yarn that can help us measure how long 1 ½ of our body length is? That is only the length of one wing, if you were to fly.

View a Website that explores flying

Paper Airplanes

Since we are thinking about flight, what else can fly?

Paper airplanes! What type of plane can you make? Watch this video of how to fold a paper airplane.

How can you make your plane fly far? Real birds have much larger and longer wings and tails. If you make a paper airplane with long wings, I wonder if it will fly further.

Egg Rockets

What else is in the sky? Rockets! Can you make a rocket using an Alka-Selzer Tablet, water, plastic Easter Eggs (the kind in two pieces), toilet paper tube and rocket decorations?

What makes the rocket launch? Alka-Seltzer contains chemicals (citric acid and sodium bicarbonate). When the water dissolves the tablet these two ingredients are able to react and form carbon dioxide. This gas is what fills the egg. That pressure from the gas is too great for the plastic egg to stay together, so the top part with the rocket blasts off.

View the Website

How do birds use their beaks?
Watch the video link to see how birds eat.

Bird Beaks

Place some sand or dirt in a pan or cookie sheet and bury some pebbles,
sticks or blocks. Use tweezers, tongs or spoons to try to pick up the items.
Which “beak” works best for each item?

View the Website

Eat like a Bird

Can you use a straw, scissors, chopsticks, tweezers or pliers to pick up your food?

Which tool reminds you of a hummingbird’s beak? How about an eagle? Is there a tool that is like a woodpecker’s beak? Which tool is like a robin or cardinal’s beak?

View the Website

Bird House

How can you design and build a birdhouse? Materials: Cardboard or plastic milk carton, dowel or chopstick, paint or markers, craft sticks, twin or wire hanger.

What colors will you use to make your house? What can you use to make the roof?

Once your house is hung outside, watch for birds to come visit!

Eggs

Can you make an egg bounce?

All you need is an egg, vinegar, food coloring and a jar. This experiment takes 7 days of patience!

What does the egg feel like after you remove and wash it? What does it smell like?

Can you bounce it? How high does it bounce? What does it look like when you shine a flashlight on it? What happens when you poke the egg with a pin?

What happened to the egg? When you put the egg into the vinegar, you will observe bubbles. These bubbles are from a chemical reaction with the vinegar and the calcium carbonate of the eggshell. When they mix, they form carbon dioxide which is a gas. The got larger as it sat in the vinegar and the egg shell dissolved.