Stay informed with our email newsletters.
Click here to give feedback on our pages for educators.

Self-guiding in the Galleries
Pre & Post Visit Resources
In the Dark

PreK - K


Scroll down the page to find items on the menu below or click on a link to jump to an item.


During your visit
click here for printable version

Scavenger Hunt
Learn More About In the Dark

Before and After Your Visit
click here for printable version

Important Terms and Concepts
Activities
Print and Web Resources

In the Dark Scavenger Hunt

In the Dark Scavenger Hunt
This is a great activity to do during your visit to the Museum, but you should print out and copy the worksheets ahead of time and bring them with you on your visit. During your time self-guiding through In the Dark, students can search through the exhibit to find the animals in this scavenger hunt. They can circle each animal as they find them. Can you find any clues to tell you how these animals survive in the dark? Click here for hunt worksheet.


Learn More About In the Dark

Important Terms and Concepts
You may want to familiarize your students with the following terms before your visit to the museum

Bat	a flying mammal with featherless wings that is active at night and uses echolocation.
Cave	a natural hollow area with an opening leading into or under the earth.
Diorama	A 3-D or sculptural model showing a scene or a group of figures (animals, people, etc.) and their surroundings.
Echolocation	the ability of some animals like bats and dolphins to give off high-pitched sounds that bounce off of objects in the area and return to the animal, who can then figure out the size, shape, and location of the objects from this "echo;" bats use echolocation to navigate (find their way) and to find prey (food).
Mole	a small, furry animal who digs tunnels underground and eats insects.
Nocturnal	a word to describe an animal that is active at night.
Ocean	a very large body of salt water.
Owl	a nocturnal bird that hunts small animals; owls have hooked talons (claws), large heads with short beaks, large eyes set looking forward, and fluffy feathers that let them fly very quietly.
Pupil	the dark area in the center of the colored part of the eye that lets light into the eye.
Stalactite	a cave formation that hangs from the “ceiling” of the cave. Though it looks like an icicle, it is not made of frozen water, but hardened minerals.
Stalagmite	a cave formation that looks like an icicle standing up on the floor of a cave. Though it looks like an icicle, it is not made of frozen water, but hardened minerals.

To remember which is which:  StalaGmites are on the Ground; StalaCtites are on the Ceiling.

SOIL:  Who Put the Air in There?
Students explore soil in small groups.  Place some potting soil or humus (available at garden centers) in a wide-mouthed jar (without packing it down).  Then pour in enough water to get the soil wet.  What do you observe?  Loose soil will give off air bubbles and will become more compact when wet. Ask students to explain what they see happening and ask them why they
think this happens. 

As a point of comparison, you can try the same experiment with clay (explain to students that clay is a type of soil).  Again, ask students to describe what they see and speculate about why it is happening.  Give students a sample of loose, dry soil and a sample of clay to examine with a magnifying glass.  What do they see?  Soil is made up of little particles.  Potting soil is loose, with space in between the particles.  Clay also has particles, which are sticky and pressed very close together (though they are so small you may not be able to see them with a magnifying lens).  Some soils have very little air space in between particles, and others have more. 

How does the air get in there?  Who separates the particles and keeps them loose?  Soil-dwelling animals like earthworms, ants, millipedes and moles create air space in between these particles by tunneling through the soil.  They mix different layers of soil together.  Earthworms also take soil into their bodies when they eat, and it passes through them, along with broken-down organic materials, leaving behind loose, nutrient-rich soil.

Soil can contain different types of mineral-based particles called clay (smallest particles), silt (next smallest), sand (larger); soil can also contain decomposed organic material.

Vermicompost
A great way for students to learn about the important role earthworms play in
the soil is through first-hand observation of worms in a classroom or school
compost bin.  You can download or order a free worm composting guide for teachers put together by California Integrated Waste Management or go to the Resourceful School Project's page on vermicompost.  For more information, Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Applehof, a guide to classroom vermiculture, is available through Berkshire Athenaeum’s on-line catalogue.

The World of Earthworms
Students experiment with common substances with distinctive scents like vinegar in order to observe the reactions of live earthworms.  This can serve as a springboard for other worm experiments exploring other questions students may have.  Developed by the Cincinnati Museum Center; used here with permission.  Click here for complete lesson.

"Batman Says"
After your visit to the Museum, select a few dioramas from In the Dark (for example: cave, forest at night, and underground), and have the class brainstorm a list of things that they remember seeing in each one. Encourage them to name both animals and other things like plants, rocks, water, and dirt. Explain to students that none of the items in the dioramas themselves are really alive-- they are sculptures. But they show you what real natural places look like. If the dioramas were real, some things would be alive and some would not.

Go through the list together, discussing which items are living, which ones are not, and how you can tell the difference. For a fun way to reinforce this idea, play “Batman Says,” a variation of Simon Says. The leader says “Batman says…” followed by an item from the list. If it is a living thing, then the students make sounds or motions like that animal (without leaving their spots). (In the case of a plant, students can make their bodies into a plant shape and then stand still). If the leader says “Batman says… rock,” or anything else that is not alive, students should stay frozen in their spots.

Batty Bulletin Board
Transform a bulletin board or a wall of your classroom into a bat cave! This takes a little work to set up, but it can be used throughout a long period of time for many different classroom activities. Using brown craft paper, simply cut out a large domed shape and staple or tape it up. (You may need to put together more than one piece of paper, depending on the size of paper you have available). If you have a larger space, create a brown area beneath the cave to represent an underground habitat. Draw a dark line with marker to separate the cave from the soil. Create a system of dark tunnels running through the soil with strips of black paper (make sure they are wide enough for the moles to fit!). (For extra fun, you can get very inexpensive bags of plastic insects at a dollar store and hot glue or sticky-tack them onto the background).

Have students cut out black paper bats and brown paper moles. Click here for templates. Students can also make these into puppets by wrapping a strip of construction paper around a finger to make a tube and taping the end in place. Then tape or glue the tube to the cutout animal shape, and it's a finger puppet! Students who are done early can cut out paper stalagmites (on the ground) and stalactites (hanging from the ceiling) to add to the cave.

Use tacks or small pieces of Velcro to attach the moles and bats to their habitats. The moles and bats can be used as visuals for math activities like counting, adding and subtracting (ie., If there are two bats in the cave, and two more fly in, how many are in the cave now?) The bulletin board can also be used to discuss spatial concepts like near and far; left and right; up and down; above and below; and math concepts like symmetry (the bats are symmetrical and the moles are not); more than and fewer than; sequence: first, second, third… With some white string and a few white letters and numbers, a basic grid system can easily be placed over the board. (How many bats are in box A1?) Basic map skills can be reinforced by having students make the moles “travel” in different directions (North, East, Southwest, etc.).

Pond Water Experiment
With this simple, hands-on experiment designed by the Cincinnati Museum Center students will see first-hand what effect darkness has on water plants that are accustomed to sunlight. This can help students understand why living things in the dark depths of the ocean are much different from the aquatic life forms in sunlit waters that we are used to seeing. Used here with permission. Click here for complete lesson.

Flashy Firefly Paintings
Give students some crayons of varied colors including greens and browns, but only mid-tone or dark colors. Make sure each student also has one clean white crayon and one yellow one. Give each student a piece of scrap paper, a brush, a cup of water, and a set of watercolor paints. Give them some time to experiment—drawing with the crayons first and then using the watercolors to paint over them (emphasize that they are not making a finished picture of something- encourage students just to play around drawing lines and squiggles.

After a few minutes, ask students to share what they noticed. What happens when you paint over the different colors? What happens if you press hard with the crayon? What happens if you don’t? What happens if you make the watercolor very dark? What if it’s very watery?

Explain to students that you’d like to make paintings that show what nature looks like at night. Ask students how they could use the crayons and paint to make such a painting. Discuss what students could make with darker crayon colors (animals, trees, grass, bushes, ponds, etc.). Discuss what students might use the white and yellow crayons for (street lights, stars, moon, fireflies, cat’s eyes, etc.). Tip: remind students to press down strongly with the white and yellow crayons so that they will show up brightly through the paint. What colors of paint should they use? When students are ready to paint, give them a clean sheet of paper. Click here for example.

Suggested Web and Print Resources

All of these resources, except those noted with *, are available through the Central/Western Massachusetts (C/W MARS) library system. Use the Berkshire Athenaeum’s on-line catalogue , to search for these print resources in Western Massachusetts.

Print and Web Materials For Students

Brinckloe, Julie. Fireflies! NY: Collier Macmillan, 1985. The illustrated story of a young boy who catches fireflies, only to realize that he must let them go to allow them to live.

Fraser, Mary Ann. Where Are the Night Animals? (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science 1). NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999. A fun and colorfully illustrated book about the activities and habitats of common nocturnal animals. The book ends by revealing where these animals are “hiding” during the daylight hours.

Glaser, Linda and Loretta Krupinski (Illus.). Wonderful Worms. CT: Millbrook Press, 1992. A picture book for young readers showing cross-sections of the worm's world and following them through their lifecycle. The book will help students appreciate the important and beneficial role of these often overlooked animals.

Hawes, Judy and Ellen Alexander (Illus.). Fireflies in the Night. NY: Harper Collins, 1991. The story of a young girl who learns about fireflies from her grandfather.

Horowitz, Ruth and Susan Avishai (Illus.). Bat Time. NY: Four Winds Press, 1991. A little girl and her father enjoy bat-watching together.

Keller, Sylvia and Normand Chartier (Illus.). Ernie and Bert’s Flashlight Adventure. NY: Random House, 1995. Ernie and Bert set off on an imaginary flashlight adventure as they search for lost treasure. Along the way they discover glow-in-the-dark bats, parrots, friendly ghosts, and Ernie’s missing Rubber Duckie.

Schwartz, Roslyn. The Mole Sisters and the Moonlit Night. Toronto: Annick Press, 2001. One of a series of illustrated stories for young children featuring mole sisters who take a moonlit canoe ride, wish upon a shooting star, and end up on the moon.

Sturges, Philemon and Anna Vojtech (Illus.) Ten Flashing Fireflies. New York: North-South Books, 1995. A rhyming and counting book covering the numbers 1 - 10. A brother and sister collect fireflies, but discover that their glow begins to fade. The reader is lead through the count-down as the children release the fireflies one by one.

Tomlinson, Jill and Paul Howard (Illus.). The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark. MA: Candlewick Press, 2001. The story of an owl named Plop who learns not to be afraid of the dark.

Waber, Bernard. A Firefly Named Torchy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970. Follow Torchy the firefly as he learns all the things he must do to become an adult firely.

Wheeler, Lisa and Ivan Bates (Illus.) One Dark Night. San Diego: Harcourt, 2003. An illustrated story for young children about mouse and mole, who venture off into the dark woods and become frightened by a bear, only to find that the bear is not so scary after all-- he was simply waiting for them to arrive to have dinner with him.

Yolen, Jane and John Schoenherr (Illus.). Owl Moon. NY: Philomel Books, 1987. An illustrated story book for young children about a little girl who goes for a walk with her Pa on a winter night, looking for owls.

Web and Print Materials For Educators

Applehof, Mary.  Worms Eat My Garbage.  MI:  Flower Press, 1997.  A guide to starting and maintaining a worm composting system in your classroom.

Bat Facts and Myths
A concise web page with the basic facts about bats that dispels common
myths.  Click on the "Return to Activites" link at the bottom of the page for activity ideas for young children.

BioMEDIA: How Do Animals See in the Dark?
This visually striking page focuses on the vision of animals at night and during the day.  Though the language is far too sophisticated to use directly with young students, teachers will find it a clear and concise source of important background information and good visual aids.

eNature.com: Starnosed Mole
A brief description of basic information about this unusual mammal, including an up-close photo of the nose.

The Firefly Files
In this website sponsored by the University of Ohio and the Museum of
Biological Diversity, you’ll find information about where to find fireflies,
their behavior, their range, their glow, and how to encourage them to come
to your yard.

Howe Caverns
Howe Caverns is a school group/tourist friendly cave system in New York
State.  The web site offers an online tour of the cavern system with photos,
information and a few quicktime video clips.  Its Cavern Classroom
Educational Resources provide background on the basics of cave formation and cave life.

How Stuff Works:  How Bats Work
A very informative article about bats including topics like flight, echolocation, roosting, and their place in the ecosystem.

*  Nightlife: Creatures of the Deep.  New England Aquarium and Bermuda
Underwater Exploration Institute (Dir.)and Peter Benchley (Nar.). 
New England Aquarium and Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute, 2001.
This video documents bioluminescent animals of the ocean such as anglerfish, giant tubeworms, and six-gilled sharks through underwater footage. To order this video you may contact New England Aquarium, Conservation Department, Central Wharf Boston, MA 02110-3399, (617) 973-5288, wowfilms@neaq.org.

Ocean Link: The Deep Sea
This section of the Ocean Link site allows you to explore different levels
of the ocean.  It provides fantastic images of the organisms that live in
each level, and the images are accompanied by succinct and accessible
information about each species.

Singapore Zoological Gardens Docent Web Site:  How Do Snakes Hunt?
A good basic source of information about snake senses and adaptations for hunting, including information on pit vipers.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services, an independent Federal grant- making agency dedicated to creating and sustaining a nation of learners by helping libraries and museums serve their communities supports the Berkshire Museum.

< Back to School and Youth Groups Main Page