Sparrows and Development

BirdSleuth helps students discover patterns

For more than ten years, Phil Kahler has been using Lab of Ornithology projects in his middle-school science, math, and language arts classes at Tualatin Valley Junior Academy in Oregon. His students even have a bird blind and their own outdoor classroom! Because his classes have been observing birds consistently for so many years, students are beginning to discover long-term patterns in the data.

During the 2006-07 school year, on his first visit to the bird blind, Nick Halverson, one of Kahler’s students, saw more House Sparrows than other species. He followed his observations with research on House Sparrows and decided to investigate the question, “Do populations of House Sparrows increase when housing developments are built in wooded areas?”

Using the scientific method, Nick collected data on the local House Sparrow population from November 2006 through March 2007. Then he looked up data on House Sparrow populations from 1996 to 2006 (posted on the class website), and gathered information about when the houses there were built.

Nick concluded that there was a correlation between the House Sparrow population and the new housing developments. “The increased building around Downy Creek provides safe places for House Sparrows to make their homes,” he wrote. “A wooded area, a creek with lots of insects, and feeders that have bird seed in them all the time—that’s a great environment for House Sparrows.”

BirdSleuth supports students participating in the scientific process; we encourage them to answer their questions through observational study, reference research, and experimentation. They may publish what they find out in Classroom BirdScope magazine or the new BirdSleuth Reports online magazine.

To help support student participation in BirdSleuth, to provide a curriculum kit to a school like Tualatin Valley Junior Academy, or to learn more, please visit www.BirdSleuth.net, or call Jennifer at (607) 254-2403.

— Gabby Montanez, BirdSleuth project assistant,
and Jennifer Schaus, project leader

For permission to reprint all or part of this article, please contact Laura Erickson, editor, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd., Ithaca, NY, 14850. Phone: (607) 254-1114. email: lle24@cornell.edu