Designs of Nature - Tracks and Traces

Focus: Tracks and traces can provide a glimpse into the lives of animals whose actions are otherwise hidden from us.

Puppets (Henry (dressed for winter), Mother, Mouse, Mink, Porcupine)

Materials Checklist
Puppet Show (puppets, script, four track pattern signs)
Follow the Footprints (track pattern diagram, cardboard ovals in two sizes, tape)
Window Shade Story (shelf paper or window shade, permanent markers)
Pattern Practice (broom, track pattern diagram) Picture Parade (slide show, projector, screen, or pictures of animal tracks and sign)
Track Detectives (track and sign field guides, track pattern diagram, tape measure or yardstick)
Track Stories (sponge cushion tracks or stencil tracks, markers or ink pads, shelf paper, crayons)
Tracker's Math (5/6 ELF) (paper, pencils, erasers, rulers or tape measures, Mystery Track Sheet)

Supplemental Reference Materials (Slide show scripts: Grades K-2, Grades 3-6, Common New England Mammals Active in Winter, Tracks and Traces, Animal Tracks ID cards, Track Patterns diagram, Window Shade Story illustration, 5/6 ELF Activity: Tracker's Math and Mystery Track sheet)

Additional Reading/Resources
Stokes Guide to Animal Tracking and Behavior, by Donald and Lillian Stokes, Little Brown and Company, Boston, 1986.
Mammal Tracks: Life-Size Tracking Guide, by Lynn Levine and Martha Mitchell, Heartwood Press, East Dummerston, VT.
Tracking and the Art of Seeing, by Paul Rezendes, Harper Resources, 1999.
Bird Tracks and Sign, by Mark Elbroch, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA, 2001.
ELF Corner: A Christmas Tree for the Critters (pdf file).

ELF Notes - Template for newsletter on Tracks and Traces
** Word document * pdf file

For Younger Children
Many of the activities in VINS's new Small Wonders book can be used in ELF, too. To find appropriate activities for children aged 3-6, click here.

Teaching Suggestions
Throughout this workshop, remember to emphasize the process of developing a list of questions to ask when you see tracks as discussed in the background information.

Puppet Show
This presentation may be easiest with three people, one just to handle the animal track puppets!

It's fun to have Woof the Dog pop up every now and then throughout the puppet show somewhere off ahead of Henry.

Follow the Footprint
You can start this activity by having children crawl on their hands and knees like babies do. Which appendages move together?

You might want to cut out the track templates for this activity from no-slip rug pads (you can get a 2 x 4' piece from LLBean for $10) or Darice(TM) craft foam squares.

Magazine pictures or stuffed pets of a galloper, bounder, waddler and trotter are helpful visuals.

Window Shade Story
If you are in a city environment, you can modify the story to include an urban scenario. For example, “A cat was let out of a house into the backyard where it crept under a bench to watch the many happy feathered diners at the bird feeder hanging nearby. A squirrel ran across the patio and leapt onto the feeder. Spying the cat, the squirrel stopped raiding the feeder and jumped onto the roof to scurry away. The cat walked across the patio but was chased off by the neighbor's dog who had been trotting by but broke into a run to chase the cat into the garage. The chase startled a raccoon who was slinking along the outside garage wall and had just torn into the trash bag that Junior had left outside the overfull garbage cans. Later that night, a skunk feasting on the fallen seeds under the bird feeder was snatched up by a swooping owl, who lost a couple of feathers, but not his meal.

Print Match
If snow conditions aren't cooperating, you might want to use Shelburne Farms Project Season's Sole Search activity where kids make a rubbing of their right shoe with paper and crayon. They then trace the outline of their left shoe around the rubbing. Place all the left shoes in a central spot. Pass out a shoe rubbing to all children (don't take your own!) and have them find the correct match to their print. Check the shoes and prints matches. Then have children return the shoe and rubbing to the owner! Students could compile sneaker rubbings or prints into a field guide to the students' shoes.

Track Detectives
If you are in a city environment, be sure to include track identification information for urban critters such as dogs, cats, raccoons, mice, rats gray squirrels and birds of different sizes like crows and ground-feeding sparrows.

Track Stories
White plastic erasers (available at art supply stores) can be easily carved with woodcut tools and used as prints with stamp pads.

Darice(TM) sticky back Foamies can be cut into track shapes and attached to 2” x 3” blocks of wood for track stamps.

Extensions
If you have a fresh snow outside, send the teacher out for a walk. Once he/she is “discovered missing,” track him/her around the school to hiding spot.

Use a pair of swim fins to make confounding tracks outside for kids to discover!

Local game wardens may have pelts from road kills, many of which have the feet still attached.

Learning Goals
Concepts/Ideas

• Each kind of animal leaves a particular pattern of tracks in the snow or mud that reflects the animal's size, shape and the way that the animal moves.
• There are four types of track patterns, grouped according to the way animals move: Galloping, Bounding, Waddling, Walking/Trotting.
• The measurements of stride and straddle can help distinguish between animals that create similar track patterns.
• Following tracks reveals a story of an animal's activities and of encounters with other animals.
• Other signs of animal presence are scat, browse or chew marks, and den or nesting sites. These signs combined with track patterns can give a positive identification of an unseen animal.

Vocabulary: tracks, straddle, stride, galloping, walking, trotting, bounding, waddling, scat, browse (definitions)

Skills

• Comparing different animal track patterns and relating them to the animals' size, shape, and way of moving.
• Active listening to learn to distinguish different animal's track shape and pattern.
• Identifying and categorizing track and print patterns to assist in interpreting the story they tell.
• Creating a model on paper using markers and animal track stamps to reconstruct or invent a story of animal behavior.
• Recognizing the tracks and traces of some common animals through outdoor observation using location, size, and shape and track pattern.

Grade Expectations:
Grades PK-K (S1, S4, S6, S38) Living animals move from one place to another to find food and water. Each kind of animals leaves a pattern of tracks when it moves through snow or mud. The pattern of tracks reflects the way and animal moves.

Grades 1-2 (S6, S7, S30, S38) Animals move in different ways; they way they move is reflected in their track patterns. Following animal tracks and other signs tell about animals' activities.

Grades 3-4 (S2, S4, S30, S38) An animal's body size and structure is reflected in its track pattern. When hunting, feeding, and building or finding shelter animals leave tracks and signs that tell of their activities.

Grades 5-6 (S2, S4) The size, width of straddle and length of stride in tracks along with other signs can be used to identify the animal that left them.

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