Science in the Library ~ Bats!

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The last session of Science at the library we attended was on bats. What’s not to love when learning about a mammal that flies and uses echolocation?

The session started with hands-on learning about pinging. In this case, different sized balls had to be either bounced off ‘walls’ or aimed to pass between them

They then lined up opposite the wall to try their hand at honing echolocation skills by using just enough force and the right direction to bounce a ball off the wall with it returning TO them. Different balls provided different results.

The really ‘fun’ hands-on activity, though, was done with a partner. One was the bat and rolled the chosen ball towards the box. The other pushed the box which served as an insect (aka bat food!) This was a lot harder than it looked. (And, it was impossible to get a shot that didn’t depict motion!)

Then, we played a card game where you had to collect enough food to cover your energy expenditure. The open circles on a card indicate how many units of energy you ‘got’. The darkened circles are energy spent. Clouds and sun both needed one unit of energy. When it was your turn, you drew 2 cards. If you did not draw enough energy to meet the demand placed on you, then you didn’t ‘survive.’ For each unit of energy gained, you got a colored block of paper. Those could build up, but had to be spent if you used more energy than gained in a turn.

We then constructed a model of a bat cave using construction paper. The black hole punched pieces of paper represented a cluster of bats (I think 3) if done to scale.