Humane Education Activity: Mission: Migration

There's always been something cool about birds. The eagle is the national symbol of the U.S. Lots of sports teams and schools have bird mascots. Birds are beautiful, fascinating, and known for doing amazing things, such as the arctic tern, which migrates basically from pole to pole twice each year.

Audubon New York has created an online game, Mission: Migration, to help students learn more about bird migration and to encourage positive choices in helping birds "thrive and survive" around your home. The goal of the game is to "try to help your flock migrate safely by learning how choices you make each and every day around your home, school, and neighborhood can affect the fate of these migrating birds - in both positive and negative ways."

Players choose from four different types of birds, each of whom has different levels of speed, agility and stamina. The flock has to navigate hazards and obstacles (such as storms and planes) and find safe places to land (no pesticides, poisons, pollution, etc.) in order to rest and feed. Flocks must maneuver through different types of "habitat," such as farmland, suburban neighborhoods, etc.

This game would be most relevant to upper elementary and lower middle school students.

If you want something a little more hands-on, the Wisconsin Humane Society has adapted this game into a role-playing activity for kids in grades 3-5. (pdf) Students group into flocks of different bird species and try to successfully migrate, much like in the online game. Migration Cards along the way tell the "flocks" what challenges and successes they encounter, and the flocks have to behave accordingly. (Some of the actions -- smacking their lips when they find food, groaning "5 times" when they fall ill, etc. -- might seem a little quirky to students, so you might need to spend a little extra time fostering comfort with the play-acting.) One of the strengths of the activity is the debriefing after the role play, to encourage students to think critically about the experiences of birds, how humans influence the health and well-being of wild birds, and a bit about what students can do to help migrating birds.

Both resources provide a springboard for students to learn more about birds, migration, and the impact of our choices on wildlife.

~ Marsha

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