Current Events Lesson Plan: May 12-18, 2016
Current Event: The Bison Becomes the First National Mammal of the United States
Recently, U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law the National Bison Legacy Act, making the American bison, or “buffalo,” the official national mammal. The bison takes its place beside the bald eagle (the national bird since 1782) as an American symbol. Great herds of bison once roamed over North America between the Appalachian Mountains in the east and the Rocky Mountains in the west. Indians depended upon bison meat for food and hides for clothing. In 1850, about 20 million bison still thundered over the western plains. In the late 1800′s, white American hunters slaughtered millions of bison, depriving Indians of their main source of food and reducing the U.S. bison population to fewer than 1,000. Today, thanks to legal protection, the bison population is now at 500,000. Many bison are living in commercial and conservation herds in more than a dozen states. Yellowstone National Park, which lies in the western states of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, is the only place in the country where bison have lived continually.
Objective:
Buffalo is the common name of several kinds of large wild oxen. The name was first given to the black water buffalo of India. The animal that most Americans know as the American buffalo is actually not a true buffalo. Zoologists call it a bison. Unlike the Cape buffalo or water buffalo, it has a large head and neck and humped shoulders. The American bison is brownish-black, except on the hind part of the body, which is brown. Long, coarse hair covers the head, neck, and hump. The hair forms a beard on the throat and chin. The head has a pair of horns like those of domestic cattle. Bulls (males) usually weigh from 1,600 to 2,000 pounds (726 to 910 kilograms). Extremely large ones may weigh as much as 3,000 pounds (1,400 kilograms). Cows (females) are much smaller than bulls and rarely weigh more than 900 pounds (410 kilograms). Bison are social animals and live in herds. The bulls and the cows graze together throughout the year. A single yellowish-red calf is born in May or June. Bison feed mostly on grass. They also eat a few other small plants, as well as twigs of willows and low shrubs. The Behind the Headlines news story and related World Book articles explore bison and other animals.
Words to know:
Discussion Topics:
1. In the late 1880’s fewer than 1,000 bison were still living in the United States. Ask your students to name some people who were alive in the 1880’s. (Students might name Jane Addams, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Alexander Graham Bell, Otto von Bismarck, George Washington Carver, Marie Curie, Thomas Alva Edison, Sigmund Freud, Geronimo, Claude Monet, Florence Nightingale, Alfred Nobel, Theodore Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, Mark Twain, Queen Victoria, Booker T. Washington, Woodrow Wilson, Orville and Wilbur Wright.)
2. Ask your students to debate, “Humans have the responsibility to protect animals from extinction.”
3. Ask your students what animal they would make the national symbol of their country. Why?
4. Ask your students to use World Book’s Timelines feature to view or add to the Animal Extinctions Since 1600 timeline.