Peregrine Falcons, Tower City/Cleveland, Ohio.  The Ohio Division of Wildlife and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History have teamed up to present one of the most exciting real world science projects online. Students have a rare opportunity to develop literacy skills as they read   posts, complete research projects, and record observations of the mating, nesting, hatching, and parenting behaviors of peregrine falcons. Students who may struggle with inference in literature selections in class, may learn inference instead from watching and journaling about the behavior of falcons on a web cam and later analyzing those recorded observations. As the same students compare their personal observations and inferences with those made by professional biologists, they will naturally begin to develop new skills and abilities for interpreting written materials. Student learning was also supported significantly by volunteer peregrine falcon nest monitor Scott Wright who posted outstanding responses to student questions and inquiries throughout the nesting season.   Raptors in the City provides excellent additional resources to make this project an outstanding real world learning experience. This project to support the Peregrine Falcons as they adapt to the environment of the city meets science and language arts standards at many grade levels. 

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• Raptors in the City is a GREAT site for teachers and students to begin their investigation of peregrine falcons. Be sure to register for the Falcon Flash newsletters written by Scott Wright a Peregrine Falcon Nest Monitor from Cleveland, Ohio. Scott always includes great photos, outstanding information, and details. It is outstanding and sure to be a hit with your students. An inquiry based science curriculum is also available at this site. It was developed by Debbie Mathies, an outstanding teacher who developed the site and offers excellent resources and support for this project. Teachers and parents will be thrilled with the bibliography that includes age level information for each book listed.
   

• The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has a great site that provides excellent information on the Growth and Development of a Peregrine Falcon Chick. This article is especially helpful as students are observing the behaviors of the new chicks on the webcam.
   

• The Raptor Resource Project presents a Falcon Facts page that provides excellent background information that is fully illustrated.
   

• The New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife Falcon Cam:  This site has a great webcam as well as curriculum for a Peregrine Scavenger Hunt (a six session curriculum on peregrine falcons for students in grades 4-8) as well as a Peregrine Falcon Kids Book in PDF format.
   

• The Falcon Research Group in Washington has a wonderful site that has field notes as well as background information for students to help them understand the behaviors they may observe during the nesting season.
   

• The Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group   has an excellent Raptor Learning Web page in their site designed specifically to help students learn more about birds of prey. You can even print a copy of an official Peregrine Falcon Nesting Survey Observation Form used by researchers helping the university observe peregrine falcons at nests throughout California. Or you may choose to print a Peregrine Falcon Fact Sheet.  Students can test their knowledge of peregrine falcons by taking a Peregrine Falcon Quiz or they can learn even more by reading the FAQ on Raptors submitted by students around the world. There is even a Glossary to help students learn terms related specifically to raptors. (curriculum focus)
   

• The Raptor Center of the University of Minnesota has curriculum for teachers on raptors and their habitats. It includes sounds made by peregrine falcon eyases as well as peregrine courtship vocalizations.
   

• The Canadian Wild Life Service web site provides an excellent page of scientific information about the peregrine falcon. The Canadian Peregrine Foundation has pages that provide in depth scientific information also.

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 Additional Peregrine Falcon Web Cams

• Green Works Falcon Cam and web site includes special activities just for kids.
   

• The Raptor Resource Project sponsors web cams for falcons and other birds.
   

• Pennsylvania's Peregrine DEP Falcon Page  includes a web cam and journal entries describing the events.
   

• The Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group has great web cams too.
   

• The Kodak Bird Cam site has excellent photos, information on falcons, and the Kodak Falcons family tree. Mariah and Kaver have moved into the nest box for 2003 and the cameras are up and running.

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General Research on Birds and Additional Web Cams

• The National Wildlife Federation sponsors a website titled eNature.com where you can find free local wildlife guides. You type in your zip code and it will give you an online edition of all the birds, butterflies, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, trees, or wildflowers for your region. Best of all, you can click on a bird species to see a photo and listen to it's song or call.
   

• The Birdhouse Network shows you how to set up an observation web cam to observe nesting birds. Many web cams for different bird species are highlighted on this site. You'll also find some good bird bio fact sheets.
   

• Visit this page for links to web cams of hundreds of species of nesting birds all over the world.
   

• The Birder.Com has compiled a great list of links to sites that specialize in information about all aspects of birding. You'll also find the North American Quick Bird Reference Guide with links to photos of hundreds of species of birds.
  

• The US Fish and Wildlife Service has an excellent two page Raptor Fact Sheet you can print to introduce your students to falcons and help them understand why they are classified as raptors.
   

• Avian Anatomy and Morphology: fun scientific information about bird skeletons, feathers, feet, wings, eggs, beaks, heart and blood, lungs and breath, brain and nerves, eyes and sight, ears and hearing, and noses and smell.

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Ask an Expert

• eNature.com gives students access to birding experts as well as experts in many fields of nature. 
   

• Scott Wright, the nest box monitor for the APK site in Cleveland, Ohio is an excellent resource for students. He posts answers on the discussion boards regularly and responds to emails from students too. His E-mail address is posted on the discussion boards.

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Bird Songs and Calls

• The National Wildlife Federation sponsors a website titled eNature.com where you can find free local wildlife guides. You type in your zip code and it will give you an online edition of all the birds, butterflies, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, trees, or wildflowers for your region. Best of all, you can click on a bird species to see a photo and listen to its song or call.
   

• The Raptor Center of the University of Minnesota has curriculum for teachers on raptors and their habitats. It includes sounds made by peregrine falcon eyases as well as peregrine courtship vocalizations.
  

• Debbie Mathies, who hosts the Raptors in the City site shared this information with us about falcon vocalization:  " A state falcon expert here in Connecticut says that falcons are the noisiest birds she deals with.  She says that during banding of chicks, the noise is deafening.  She says that the bald eagles are nearly silent during banding!"

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Many teachers are using this project in a variety of ways to meet the unique needs of their students.  Lynne Harvey, a fourth grade teacher,  had students who were interested in doing the research and participating as Nest Monitor Interns complete applications.
(PDF version)  To visit the sites created by Lynne and her students, click on the season you'd like to view.

• Web Site for Rolling Hills Nest Monitor Interns 2003
• Web Site for Rolling Hills Nest Monitor Interns 2004

T-Shirt Transfers

You may want to iron on logos to t-shirts (scarves, or shirts too) for each student who is participating as a Peregrine Falcon Nest Monitor Intern. This page contains 5 copies of the graphic in reversed format. (After you iron it on, it will be correct.) Here is a link to a page with 5 copies in a smaller  size. You can purchase T-shirt Iron-on Transfer paper for your ink jet computer.  Follow the directions that come with the transfer paper. A special thank you to John Gunther  (www.jgunther.com) for his gracious permission to use his falcon photo for our logo.

We have had several requests for a large picture of a falcon to place on the back of the t-shirts for the students working on this project. Scott Wright has graciously agreed to let us use a close-up of Buckeye he took.  Click on the photo at the left to print a reverse image on t-shirt transfer paper using your color printer. (The size of the reversed image when printed  is approximately 7x10 inches.)   

Weather conditions have such an impact during the nesting season that Lynne also made a chart for her students to record the weather information for the nesting site each day. (You can click on the weather conditions link on the APK site to find the local weather report for the area where the nest is located. It's especially helpful for those of us in California to see the difference!) Weather Chart  It could be an interesting option to have students complete a compare/contrast study of  peregrine falcon nest sites in different regions of the country.  They could monitor weather and behaviors of the falcons at each site and draw conclusions about the impact weather has on nesting behaviors. You could have teams specialize in recording information about different sites and then schedule time for them to compare their compiled data. 

To help students understand much of the vocabulary used to describe falcons and their behaviors, print out this Crossword Puzzle and Clues Page.

GREAT WEBQUEST Ideas: This PBS website has an excellent webquest published for upper level students to debate the issue of Falconry, a sport that has raised significant controversy among several special interest groups.

The US Fish and Wildlife Services has a great National Image Library of photos your students can use in projects. The majority of the photos are public domain! 

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