Iowa Public Television

Students are invited to become nature detectives. Winter is a wonderful time to learn about the clues animals leave behind. Students take an imaginary hike and learn how to identify common Iowa mammal tracks. Questions about mammal tracks are posed to the students. This interactive program allows time for student questions so come prepared.

Following the ICN session, registrants receive the complimentary books Who Made These Tracks? and Is Your Mama a Lama? or alternate titles.

Other Polk County Conservation Board ICN events include:
Monarch Tagging
Insects
Spiders
Bats
Life on the Prairie
Animal Winter Preparation
Unhuggable Animals
Mammals of Iowa
Cosmic Connections
Owls
Habitats
Amazing Reptiles
To Be a Seed
Sing a Song of Science

Session Related Web sites:

• EnchantedLearning.com - Learn everything about mammals including definition, descriptions, and extreme mammals (fastest, tallest, etc.)
• Mammal Tracks - Includes great pictures of many mammal's tracks.
• Polk County Conservation Board

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PBS Teachers - PBS Teachers offers free lesson plans, professional development and more for preK-12 educators.

Applicable standards from McREL:

Science Standards (Earth and Space Sciences)

Level I [Grade: K-2]
1. Knows the basic needs of plants and animals (e.g., air, water, nutrients, light or food, shelter)
2. Knows that plants and animals have features that help them live in different environments

Level II [Grade: 3-5]
1. Knows that plants and animals progress through life cycles of birth, growth and development, reproduction, and death; the details of these life cycles are different for different organisms
2. Knows that living organisms have distinct structures and body systems that serve specific functions in growth, survival, and reproduction (e.g., various body structures for walking, flying, or swimming)
3. Knows that the behavior of individual organisms is influenced by internal cues (e.g., hunger) and external cues (e.g., changes in the environment), and that humans and other organisms have senses that help them to detect these cues

Standard 6: Understands relationships among organisms and their physical environment

Level III [Grade: 6-8]
1. Knows that all individuals of a species that exist together at a given place and time make up a population, and all populations living together and the physical factors with which they interact compose an ecosystem
2. Knows factors that affect the number and typ /es of organisms an ecosystem can support (e.g., available resources; abiotic factors such as quantity of light and water, range of temperatures, and soil composition; disease; competition from other organisms within the ecosystem; predation)
3. Knows ways in which organisms interact and depend on one another through food chains and food webs in an ecosystem (e.g., producer/consumer, predator/prey, parasite/host, relationships that are mutually beneficial or competitive)

Classroom Resources:

The following related programs are available on IPTV's broadcast or from the AEAs: (Check The Classroom Resource (www.iptv.org/k12catalog) Web site for broadcast dates and times.)

• SID THE SCIENCE KID (Grade Level: PreK-2)
• BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY (Grade Level: 4-12)
• DRAGONFLY TV (Grade Level: 2-5)
• WILD CHRONICLES (Grade Level: 5-12)

Check out additional 'Classroom Resources' prepared and compiled by IPTV K-12 Connections staff.

Only twelve interactive sites are scheduled for each session. Videotaping is NOT available.

Sessions are provided at no cost by Iowa Public Television in collaboration with the Iowa Communications Network to PK-12 students and the adults working with or on behalf of PK-12 students in Iowa.

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