SCIENCE CONCEPT: Students can study bats up close and personal by building a backyard bat house. In viewing bats closely misconceptions about bats can be erased. Bats are indeed beneficial to us, although this is a reality that some people find difficult to accept. STUDENT OBJECTIVE: The student will build a bat dwelling that can be placed on the side of a building or attached to a pole or tree. OVERVIEW: OVERVIEW: In many parts of the world, even today, bats are hated and feared, and they are often associated with evil and death. This is unfortunate. But bats are useful. Bats eat huge numbers of insects, they eat flower nectar and carry pollen from flower to flower. Without these bats the plants would die out. Bat waste, called guano, is used as fertilizer for plants. Some farmers and gardeners put bat houses in their yards to attract bats that will eat harmful insects. Bats should be protected. PREPARATION TIME: 60 minutes.

LESSON TIME: 90 minutes. TEACHER PREP: Gather materials. ASK FOR VOLUNTEERS. USUALLY IN A CLASSROOM THERE WILL BE AT LEAST ONE OR TWO PARENTS THAT ARE INTO WOODWORKING AND WOULD BE HAPPY TO HELP! WORDS TO KNOW: colony nocturnal scoop transfer pollen dependent pollination conservation

TEACHER TEXT:

Bats make their homes in barns, attics, caves, and hollow trees - any place that is cool and dark. Although they usually live in small groups, sometimes hundreds of thousands live together in a colony. The Bracken Cave in Texas is the largest known colony with a population of 20 million Mexican free-tailed bats.

Most bats are nocturnal and thus do most of their flying at night. Using their wings and often their tails to scoop up insects as they fly, many bats eat up to half their weight in insects on a night. One little brown bat can eat up to 600 insects in an hour, while a colony can rid us of 6,000 tons of insects in a year.

While feeding on their diet of fruit, tropical bats not only transfer pollen as they fly from plant to plant, but also contribute to growing the plant. They can digest their meal of bananas, mangoes, guavas, and berries in 15-20 minutes. They then pass the undigested seeds of these fruit while flying, often reseeding clear-cut areas of the rain forest.

In some areas of the American Southwest, desert plants such as saguaro and organ pipe cactus are dependent on bats for nighttime pollination. In turn, animals such as ground squirrels and elf owls are dependent on these plants for survival. The loss of bats in these areas would mean the loss of large numbers of plant and animal life.

Web Hosting Provided By The National Business Aviation Association.

Explore Space ... Not Drugs!
Hear what astronauts have to say about staying drug-free.
Last modified: Sat Aug 23 14:04:12 PDT 1997

Copyright © 1997 by Cislunar Aerospace, Inc. All Rights Reserved.