About Bats Thematic Unit PDF
Preview About Bats Thematic Unit
Dear Educator, Thank you for using this unit eWorkbook. Your students will enjoy learning about this topic. Sylvia & Pat • This unit can be used as a “stand alone” unit for learning about the given subject. • “Supplemental” books, videos, and crafts can be incorporated with each unit for extra learning on the given subject. • This unit can be used with an entire classroom or children can work individually or with a partner. Many more eWorkbooks can be found here. The Joy of Learning Thank you for downloading this educational resource created by Joy of Learning, a teacher shopkeeper at Teacher's Notebook, a site dedicated to providing classroom-tested educational resources created by teachers, for teachers. This item is for your personal, non-commercial use. It should not be transferred or transmitted to any other use. You can purchase About Bats Thematic Unit, for your personal digital library, find more great resources from this teacher-author at their shop, Joy of Learning, or visit Teacher's Notebook for thousands of free and low-cost lesson plans, classroom activities, and more! Learn About Bats Learn About Bats Name __________________________ Date __________________________ Copyright@ 2013 The Joy of Learning Bats Most people have an opinion about bats. If you mention a bat to someone they may make a face and seem afraid of bats. Go ahead and ask a few people what they think about bats. What kind of reaction did you get? Write one or more complete sentences on the lines to tell about how someone reacted when you asked them about bats. Now let’s find out what bats are really like. There are nearly 1000 species of bats on the Earth. Guess what? About one fourth of the mammals on Earth are bats. Some people think of bats as being birds because they fly. Bats are not birds. Bats are the only mammals that fly. 1. mammals __________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. species ______________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. bird ________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ Copyright@ 2013 The Joy of Learning 1 Bats Bats have fur covering their bodies. Since there are almost 1000 species of bats it would make sense that not all bats have the same kind and color of fur. Long, gray fur is popular among many bats. There are bats with yellow colored fur, a pale white fur, black fur, and a scarlet colored fur. If you enjoy learning about bats, you might want to find pictures of many different kinds of bats to see what their fur looks like. Bat’s wings are not like the wings of birds. A bat’s wings are like modified hands. Picture your hand with your fingers spread very far apart. Now picture skin stretching between each finger. This is something like the wings of a bat. A bat’s wings have elongated finger bones with a double layer of skin stretching between each bone. Each wing is attached to the bat’s body and hind legs. There are many different sizes of bats. The flying fox bat has a wingspan of almost six feet (1.7m). The bumblebee bat is only one inch (3cm) long. Some bats have very long tails. The mouse-tailed bat has a tail almost as long as its body. Some bats have short tails, and some bats have no tails. There are bats that can use their tail as a pouch. They can store insects in the “pouch” until they are ready to eat them. The Natterer's bat uses its tail as a net to catch insects. The faces of bats vary among the species. Some have very large ears, some have small ears, and some bats have wide ears. Some bats can turn their ears. There are bats that have long faces like a dog or fox, and there are bats with faces that are similar to a pig’s snout. Some bats have very tiny eyes while others have large, very noticeable eyes. Many bats can see extremely well in the dark. Copyright@ 2013 The Joy of Learning 2 Bats Bats have two sets of teeth. Many baby bats have up to 22 deciduous teeth. As the bats grow these teeth are soon replaced with 20 to 28 permanent teeth. Each species of bats have different kinds of teeth. Insect eating bats have teeth that have a scissor like motion. They slide past each other. This makes it easy for them to grind the hard shell of an insect. Meat eating bats have sharp teeth for cutting and strong back teeth that can be used for crushing bones. One very interesting thing about bats is that they don’t only see with their eyes. They also use a form of sonar to find objects. They emit a high frequency sound that bounces off an object. This sound echoes or returns to the bat. This way a bat can know the size and location of an object. This is called echolocation. echolocation = locating by echo Draw a picture of a bat. Copyright@ 2013 The Joy of Learning 3 Bats A Gentle, Helpful, Little Creature Bats are very helpful little Bats are one of the most animals. About 2/3 of all bats eat insects. They eat millions of insects gentle and harmless in one season. This is very helpful. animals on Earth. Find out why it is helpful that bats eat so many insects. Write about it on the lines. _______________________________________ Upside _______________________________________ Down _______________________________________ Many times when you see a _______________________________________ picture of a bat _______________________________________ it is hanging upside down. _______________________________________ Find out why there are some pictures showing bats hanging upside down. Write about it. _______________________________________ ______________________________________ _______________________________________ ______________________________________ ______________________________________ A Misconception ______________________________________ Many people think that bats are dirty. Bats are very clean, little animals. ______________________________________ They groom themselves just like ______________________________________ cats groom themselves. ______________________________________ Many people think that ______________________________________ most bats carry rabies. Less than one half of one ______________________________________ percent of bats get rabies. Copyright@ 2013 The Joy of Learning 4 Bats Bats live in caves, trees, crevices, and inside buildings. Most species of bats live in colonies. There can be thousands of bats in one colony. This could be one reason that many people are frightened by bats. Can you imagine what it must look like in the evening when thousands of bats all of a sudden leave a cave or living space to go out to hunt for food? If you do see a bat don't try to catch it. If you see an injured or dead bat please don’t handle it. It is always smart to stay away from dead or injured wild animals. Tell an adult if you see an injured or dead bat. Many bats have lost their lives because of people’s fear of them. Many times areas where bats live have been sealed so they cannot escape. Old mine shafts that are homes to thousands of bats may be sealed to protect people from entering the shaft and being injured. Do you know what is wonderful? Scientists who study about bats are educating the public. They are teaching us that bats are safe, gentle, harmless little creatures. Now people all over the world are welcoming bats into their communities. We are being careful so as not to destroy their homes. Many people build bat houses. They hang them in trees or buildings near their homes. Bat houses can be all different sizes and shapes. Do you wonder why people would want bats living near their homes? Bats eat thousands of insects. They eat insects that are harmful to crops. A little brown bat can eat 600 mosquitoes in one hour. If you live where there are a lot of mosquitoes you might want to encourage bats to live around you. Copyright@ 2013 The Joy of Learning 5 Bats Learn More About Bats? It seems like there is an endless number of things we can learn about all the different species of bats in the world. Here is a list of things you can look up in books or on the Internet if you you want to learn more about bats. Find out the names of 15 different bat species. Write them on the lines. ______________________ ______________________ _____________________ ______________________ ______________________ _____________________ ______________________ ______________________ _____________________ ______________________ ______________________ _____________________ ______________________ ______________________ _____________________ 1. Most bats have wonderful night vision. Humans would need to use night vision scopes to see as well in the dark 2. Echolocation is very interesting. You may want to read more about this. 3. Three hundred or so plant species in the world need bats for propagation. 4. You might want to learn about bat conservation. In North America there are 45 known species of bats. More than half of these are declining in population or listed as endangered. Copyright@ 2013 The Joy of Learning 6
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