Middle School
Do Dark-Eyed Junkos Prefer Sunflower or Milo Seeds? Sixth Grade Bird Sleuths Measure Feeding Behavior in Scientific Study
Sixth grade students presented their scientific experiments and conclusions on the feeding behavior of local birds to Upper School students, faculty and staff at a Bird Symposium, held in the school’s Dining Hall on April 5 and 6. The event was a culmination of their trimester-long inquiry-based study of birds.
“Coming into this, all I knew about birds — and people who study birds— was from the Disney movie, Rio. It has a character who is an ornithologist,” explained sixth grader Luke Amon. “I thought it sounded like a boring job to have, but I just did this entire bird experiment and have learned about birds all winter and now I totally see why someone would make this their job. It’s surprisingly interesting and fun.”
Thatcher Williams agreed. “I was surprised that I liked this so much,” he shared with his Science Teacher Margaret Mackey. Asked what, specifically, they each enjoyed about their bird study experiments, they highlighted the joys of learning by doing - a hallmark of a Country School education.
“It was fun to get outside and actually see the birds we had been talking about and watch them do the things that are unique to their species,” said Amon. “Now I notice birds all of the time; not just in our school’s wild bird garden but everywhere I go.”
For their individual bird experiments, each student developed a unique hypothesis and over the course of ten observations, recorded evidence which either proved or disproved it.
“I wondered if birds would be fooled by a holographic mirror illusion,” said sixth grader Max Snow. “Dark-eyed junkos are not smart,” he declared emphatically while explaining his results to symposium attendees. “They were the most easily fooled bird in my study which included 84 individual birds, representing 7 species.”
Amon’s experiment sought to measure which seed birds prefer to eat: Sunflower or Milo? After correcting sources for error (varying seed levels in different feeders) and making sure that he made his observations at the same time each day, he concluded that sunflower seeds were clearly favored in 118 to 38 instances, with black capped chickadees and house finches the most frequent visitors. “Dark-eyed junkos didn’t even go near the sunflowers!”
“We want students to see themselves as scientists. This project allows students to take ownership of the entire scientific process, from designing and implementing an experiment to analyzing data and drawing a conclusion to answer their experimental question,” said Ms. Mackey.
New Canaan Country School
New Canaan Country School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin and are afforded all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, sex, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry, or disability in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, financial aid policies or any other school-administered programs.
