Time: 2 Hours (Can Be Shortened)
Grades: 3-12
This fun field trip allows your students to learn about some of the many birds that call the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains home. We will learn about different birds, from many different categories! This includes songbirds, owls, hawks, falcons, eagles, game birds, and more! Your students will see life-sized, full mounts for these amazing avian animals!
Life of Birds:
Like most of our on-grounds programs, the Life of Birds program includes an engaging educational lesson, hands-on animal biofact interaction, a fun activity, a specially themed scavenger hunt, and time for open exploration of the museum. Read below to learn more about each of these; remember, your program can be shortened to fit any time constraints.
Educational Lesson: 60 Minutes
Birds have fascinated humans throughout history! In the Life of Birds program, we will look at different types of birds and see what they have in common and what makes them different. We’ll answer questions like… how is a songbird different from an eagle, how can owls see so well at night, and how do birds sleep without falling off their branches?
We’ll see specimens from our vast natural history collection… across many different taxon of birds. Your students might see a bald eagle, golden eagle, kestrel, ring-necked pheasant, warbler, turkey, magpie, crow, starling, great-horned owl, snowy owl, or another one of our beautiful bird mounts. All of the species you see live in the Rocky Mountains and/or Great Plains!
For each species, your students will learn about the habitat they live in, their adaptations for survival, and what they eat… and maybe what eats them! If you want to learn more about birds of prey or owls… check out or “Life of Owls / Life of Birds of Prey” program!
Everyone loves learning about birds. Request this program for your students today!
Activity: 20 Minutes
The activity for the Life of Birds program is an owl pellet dissection! Owl pellets are one of the most interesting and unique aspects of bird evolution and behavior. Your students will be put in groups of four, and then given an owl pellet. They will utilize the tools at their table to dissect the pellet, sort the animal pieces, and then try to identify what animal was within their owl pellet! This incredibly fun activity is always a hit with students!
Scavenger Hunt: 20 Minutes
The Life of Birds scavenger hunt will bring your students through the museum, looking for certain items that pertain to what they learned about in their lesson. This will include depictions of birds in human artifacts and artwork… along with actual bird mounts within the museum. The scavenger hunts are completed in small groups or pairs.
Open Museum Exploration: 20 Minutes
While the scavenger hunt allows your students to see a curated selection of items within the museum, the open museum exploration time allows your students to explore whatever they are interested in. The Wyoming State Museum has so many topics (from dinosaurs to mining to pioneers to warfare to animals to Native American culture to national parks and more), that we find it is a great idea to give students free time at the end of the program to explore.