SAVY 2019: Session 5, Day 2 – Wind and Wings (Rising 1st/2nd)

Posted by hallep on Tuesday, July 16, 2019 in Grade 1, Grade 2, SAVY.

It was another great day at SAVY! We started by listing some of the things we knew about birds and some of our questions. Some of our questions included:

• How do birds take off?
• Why do they have a point at the end of their wings?
• When they glide, how do they stay up?
• What creates drag in the air that birds have to fly against?

Some students shared some ideas about what they thought might be the answers to these questions, and through our research, we will find answers to these and many more questions.

Students also drew some birds and bird wings and labeled what they knew. They did one diagram before looking at some examples of wing diagrams, and then, they drew another diagram after studying those examples. We had a great discussion about how looking at the example diagrams helped our own diagrams get better by either being more specific or detailed. One student even shared his finding that birds have bones with the same name as humans! For all the students this exercised helped them see what they didn’t know or didn’t think about including.

Students began researching different birds to find out about the wings. The goal of this research is to compare and contrast different birds to see how their wings help them survive in different settings. Students will continue this research tomorrow, and they will also try to design and build a bird wing incorporating some of the features that they researched.

While they were researching, students looked at some different books. They loved the field guides! Gifted students enjoy collecting information, and field guides (on any subject) have so many facts that students love to memorize and share.