Habitats - White-tailed Deer

Focus: White-tailed deer, like many other animals, occupy different habitats during the year as their requirements for food, water, and shelter change with the seasons.

Puppets (Freddy Fawn, Herbie Hare, Dosie Deer, Woody Woodchuck, Charlie Chipmunk)

Materials Checklist
Puppet Show (puppets, script, acorn glued on a puppet stick, signs saying 'Summer' and 'Fall')
Show and Tell (a deer skull, rabbit and deer browse, antlers, winter and/or summer deer pelts, portion of lower leg including the hoof, 25' measuring tape or string, 8' string, hand lenses)
Daily Diet (twigs and branches, kitchen scale, grocery bags)
Population Pressure (pretzel sticks, 8 per group)
Eat and Run (strips of white cloth, paper lunch bags, 'safety zone' sign, popcorn or other grain, headband with ears or other prop representing the predator)
Habitat Murals (large mural paper, pencils, markers, crayons, paint, deer track stamps, inkpads)
Deer Yards (5/6 ELF) (VT Fish & Wildlife Deer Wintering Maps for your area, rulers, optional-hand lenses)

Supplemental Reference Materials (Slide show scripts: Grades K-2, Grades 3-6, Show and Tell: Question and Answer reference sheets, Question cards, Skull and Jaw illustration, Deer Season Forecast, 5/6 ELF Activity: Deer Yard with Map)

Additional Reading/Resources
Stranger in the Woods by Carl R. Sams II and Jean Stoick.
The Way of the Whitetail by Dennis Olsen and Stephen Krasemann.
The White-Tailed Deer, by Ilo Hiller, Louise Lindsey Merrick Natural Environmental Series, No. 25, Texas A&M University Press, College Station, TX, 1996.
Check out this website on Chronic Wasting Disease, a growing concern.

ELF Notes - Template for newsletter on White-tailed Deer (coming soon)
* Word document * pdf file

Teaching Suggestions

Puppet Show
This show introduces the various habitats that the deer uses through the seasons, tying in nicely with the yearly theme OR, use the slide show as an introduction.

Show and Tell
This works best in small groups so every child can handle all the objects.

The pelt provided in ELF was probably obtained during hunting season, and therefore may be transitional rather than a full winter coat. This question seems to be either/or, and "transitional" takes a bit of explaining to kids.

There are two sets of guided observation questions included in the materials, one for K-2, the other for 3-6.

Daily Diet
It takes a long time to snip off 2 ½ lbs of twigs/buds a pencil diameter or less! Pile your twigs on a cloth and ask students to each put one handful in a paper bag until they think they've got enough for one deer for one day. If you know ahead of time how much you've collected, then you wouldn't need to use a scale to measure (though twigs lose moisture and weight if kept indoors).

For those in a city environment, after the children have learned a little about the deer's preferred habitat, ask the class to consider: What habitat requirements of the white-tailed deer make the city an unsuitable and even dangerous place to live? What are the consequences to deer and to humans from too many deer living too near cities?

Eat and Run
For children in city schools, you might discuss this game by asking the students: What contributes to deer overpopulation?

• Elimination of natural predators. What are a deer's natural predators and where are they?
• Reduction in habitat. Deer habitat is shrinking as people move outward from cities and sprawl consumes what used to be farmland and undeveloped areas between towns.

Population Pressure
To speed things up, sort the pretzels into bags of eight ahead of time.

Discuss the loss of native predators, the impact over-browsing has on habitat, the resulting need for some population control, and the function of a regulated deer hunt in improving the health of the remaining herd. Try to keep the focus of the workshop on adaptations of deer (NOT on hunting!).

In younger grades, have children hold their bellies if they didn't get a pretzel instead of having them die of starvation. Then afterward, be sure the hungry deer get an equal number of pretzels to snack on.

Provide four maple leaf cookies and four pretzels, to reflect the higher nutritional content of maple buds and twigs.

Eat and Run
If weather forces you inside for this game, you can still play it in an open room or gym. Place the popcorn in small bowls around room. The group then moves among food sources eating (or gathering, if you choose to use paper bags or yogurt cups) until the predator emerges. Be sure to discuss how deer's digestive system is designed for this eat and run lifestyle.

Leave time to play this many times over because everyone wants to have a turn being the predator.

For the predator prop, you can use a paper plate mask using half a plate, cut out eyes, staple on pointy ears, and color it black. Then, fold it in half and sneak it to the student who will hold it behind his/her back. When the predator is ready to chase deer, it just holds the mask up.

Instead of popcorn, you can use striped sunflower seeds for students to pick up.

Habitat Murals
With younger students, have an adult in each of the four small groups to lead the discussion about the deer's habitat needs in different seasons by reviewing the information kids learned in the puppet show.

Many students have their own personal experiences of deer that can be written up and illustrated as stories.

Extensions
One volunteer created a skit that highlighted the different habitat needs of the deer, with each student reading one line of the story. Each student made a deer mask out of half a paper plate with paper plate ears stapled on and antlers of brown pipe cleaner.

Learning Goals

Concepts/Ideas

• White-tailed deer change habitat according to seasonal change and food availability.
• A deer's body is well adapted to its habitat and lifestyle.
• Availability of adequate food supplies regulates the size of deer populations.
• Deer live in a group or 'herd' that provides some safety from predators.

Vocabulary: white-tailed deer, habitat requirements, vernal pool, swamp, thicket, forest-field edge, meadow, deer yard, graze, browse, vegetarian, evergreens, camouflage, hoof, antler, ruminant, predator, prey, food supply, herd (definitions)

Skills

• Active listening and discussion to understand seasonal changes in habitat of the white-tailed deer.
• Examining different parts of a deer's body and discussing how each feature is related to habitat and lifestyle.
• Measuring how much food a deer needs in winter to stay alive and modeling how food supply regulates the size of deer populations.
• Role-playing to understand the benefits of living in a herd for safety.
• Creating a model on paper using markers, and deer track stamps to demonstrate an understanding of seasonal habitat requirements of white-tailed deer.

Grade Expectations:
Grades PK-K (S30, S38) Deer are animals that live in fields and woods where they get food, water, and air needed for survival.

Grades 1-2 (S30, S38) Deer depend on plants for food. Deer have body parts that help them to move to places where food, shelter and water are available at different times of the year.

Grades 3-4 (S30-S38) Deer have specific physical and behavioral adaptations that help them to get what they need and to defend themselves in their environment. Deer are herbivores; they eat only plants and have unique adaptations for digesting their food.

Grades 5-6 (S38) The kinds of food deer eat vary with seasonal availability. Deer populations will fluctuate. The number of deer that an area can support depends the availability of food, water and other resources.

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