Wildlife in the City

Bernal Hill

The Yellow Band visited Bernal Hill as one of our first trips to a large green space in the City. Bernal has a resident coyote, so we looked for signs that it lives here.

 

The Yellow Band was left with a lot of questions after visiting Bernal Hill. Where could the coyote's den be? What does it eat? Thankfully, we have our own resident coyote expert here at Brightworks and invited her to present her findings on the Bernal coyote.

As we continue to explore nature and how we interact with it in the City, we've come to a few conclusions as to why coyotes might be going to such great lengths to live here, but not before having a little fun with a math provocation by exploring the speed at which coyotes travel. Yellow Banders concluded it would take about 7 seconds for a coyote to run the length of our block. We discussed the reasons why coyotes would be traveling into or around the City in the first place and were reminded of what we know about animals and their habitats. Kiddos explained how animals need food, water, and shelter to survive, and that if coyotes are looking for one of those things then most likely they'll travel. Finding more territory was a topic of discussion as well. With human populations rising and more green spaces disappearing, kiddos realized that coyotes might often feel cramped and in need of new territory.

Animal Habitats at The Randall

We checked out the Randall to learn more about animal habitats and how animals adapt in the City. We discovered that many of these animals were in our own backyards or neighborhoods.

Animal Research

Yellow Banders are beginning to learn about research and how to record their findings. We really enjoy Non-Fiction books and articles, maybe we'll be able to write some of our own!

 [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U62wYuiJRQ&feature=youtu.be[/embed]Yellow Banders also wrote fictional stories from the perspective of some of the animals we've been learning about.  To really get into character, they pretended to be their chosen animal while I opened and closed our front gate to pretend the sun was going down or coming up so that all the animals would have a chance to come out. Thanks for reading, and keep on the lookout for wildlife and green spaces in your neighborhood!