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1. understand the meanings of nocturnal and diurnal
2. recognize several nocturnal animals
3. understand the meaning and importance of a biological clock
4. understand how a hamster's biological clock is different from their own

Group #1 
View the actograms of the hamsters and compare them to their own daily activity clocks or their own actograms.  The children will hypothesize why the hamster clocks are different.  An activity worksheet will be provided for the children to complete while they discover biological clocks.

Group #2
Do an exercise to introduce and then reinforce nocturnal vs. diurnal by categorizing different animals.

Group #3
Pick at least one specific nocturnal animal and discover more about it.

Group #4
Create their your own actogram from your daily log.

Here are the links that will be needed for your activity:

• Hamster Biological Tracking Site   -  (Lesson Pre-Activity #2)
• How much do animals sleep?
• Daily Activity Clock -- Adobe Acrobat Format

Activity #1

Have the children fill out their own Daily Activity Clock for each day. (Start at latest Monday, preferably this Thursday)
**** You will need Adobe Acrobat to access the Daily Activity Clock, click on the Adobe icon above to do so*****

 

Example of an Activity Clock: 12pm - 12:30pm awake 12pm - 1:00pm exercising (recess) 1pm - 4pm awake 4pm - 5pm exercising (playing with friends) 5pm - 9:30pm awake 9:30pm -12am sleeping

Activity #2 - Before you start this activity, Click Here, to download RealPlayer so you can access the live videos.

Have children view hamsters on website.  In class together keep track of when you see the hamsters running on the wheel and when they are not.  (Start Activity on Monday)  Just keep track of :

Click Here for the Hamster Experimental Data : Then click on "Live pictures of the hamsters".

The best way to keep track of the hamsters is to create two posters.  Click on the links below for examples of the posters.  Keeping track of the hamsters this way will help the children understand, visually, the actograms given in the website that they will see 4/29.  (Note, the only problem I found is the use of military time on the x-axis)

Hamsters #1 & #2 - Actogram  -  These hamsters are now in complete darkness, not yellow coloring needed.
Hamsters #3 & #4 - Actogram  -  Be consistent with yellow coloring to indicate lights on..

     Question to Ask:     What would you do, if you lived in complete darkness all day?

Look what I did in school today Mom and Dad!!!!!!!