BRD Comments on NASA Revised Storyline

Any bird/bat that migrates to a breeding site, must have the time to raise their babies, so the babies can fly back. We call bird "babies" fledglings, when they just leave the nest, then immature. "Teenage" is equivalent to immature. I need to check on bats, but in some species of birds, adult males begin the migration followed by females and fledglings.

Spring (or summer), somewhere in the US (utopian bat summer home), a baby bat was born. The baby learns about what it is like to be a bat. When does he sleep? What does he eat? How does he eat? With whom does he live?

Bats nurse their young and stay wrapped up in their mother's arms for warmth. All babies stay in a nursery while the mothers feed. Then they begin following their mothers out to feed.

The weather turns cooler and Mama Bat says to Baby Bat that it's time to leave. Mama Bat explains what it means to migrate. As they start on their journey, a forest fire separates Mama and Baby one night. Baby Bat needs help to find his mother. All he knows is what his mother told him about migrating.

The student is then introduced to an interface to help Baby Bat migrate south to find his mother. The interface includes a general map of the U.S. and Central America. This map will map their progress as they travel. A larger screen will reveal their current status, whether a view from the bats perspective (on the ground), or aerial, or satellite image. The student can navigate themselves North, South, East or West by clicking on the screen.

Make sure the picture is upside down when the bat is roosting at night "bats perspective (on the ground)"

During their journey they will meet up with several obstacles such as clear cut forest.

A clear cut is not an obstacle. There may be lots of insects around, unless it has been "treated" to kill the debris or burned. The clear cut is a problem for (1) no roosting site, (2) an open area where owls may attack the bats from their roosts on the trees, next to the clear cut (we call this "edge effect" when there are 2 distinct habitats butting up to each other...there are other components of edge I won't discuss here.)

Some places Baby Bat will have lots of food, some places will not. The student will learn about the elements needed in a bat's habitat and the importance of preservation. It isn't just what the bat needs, but also what plants need. For example, The fruit bats pollinate the plants that provide them food.

The student navigates through the maze of obstacles slowly advancing closer to the baby's colony. The Baby Bat meets different species of bats (i.e. frugivores) during his journey. The obstacles and other events are drawn from the BRD storyline.

The journey will introduce opportunities for the student to learn about remote sensing, reading maps, different habitats and different animals. Each new step introduces reveals more about the environment. Each area can also call upon or link to different lesson modules.

Sounds good

The design of the maze will lead the student and the Baby Bat south. The end of the story would reunite the mother and the baby (the baby may not be a baby by that time).

I need to find out if all females will stay in the colony (such as prides of lions) and the young males find a new area. This would make a difference in the name of the young bat.

While the student was navigating, the map show areas where a suitable habitat was scarce. These areas, discerned from space, serve as a map resource for NatureMapping. NatureMapping is introduced and linked to relevant lessons.

Summary

The story concept offers interactivity and a vehicle of explanation (Mama Bat). The baby can ask questions. As the baby bat learns about what it is like to be a bat, so does the student. The student is drawn into the story to help the baby bat. To effectively help the baby bat, the student must learn about the bat's habitat. Lessons are introduced through-out the journey. A separate O"teacher's edition" page can provide all the lesson modules outside of the interactive story line. The end ties together the use of remote sensing as a starting point and resource to NatureMapping.

This makes sense. We need to keep the obstacles realistic and scientifically correct. We also must show how we need bats and their habitats they use as much as they do. Then students can use their thinking and investigative skills (demanded by math and science standards for schools) to inquiry different scenarios (this would be in the teacher edition) while traveling through the maze.

Basically, we don't want to promote saving bats just because they are cute.

Karen, this is much better than the duck and the agent!

(Regarding Bat Species 6-4-97)

My comments pertain mostly to the overall scheme you are trying to develop. My first comment is that with the remote sensing aspect, be sure to use some of the beautiful (but shocking if you like wild) nighttime imagery that shows the density and clustering of lights around population centers that would also be visible to nocturnal migrants.

My second comment is that there is no one bat species in the US that does what you want this one to do: live in colonies, migrate long distances to Central America, and have a single young.

But there is a bat that can fit most of the bill if you tweak the storyline a bit. It is really an interesting animal that will draw kids in, and is perhaps one of the most distinctive bats in the U.S.--and very photogenic for a bat. This is Lasiurus cinereus, the hoary bat. This species has a beautiful grizzled appearance, is large (for a US bat), and roosts solitarily in foliage rather than more "typical" habitats we think of such as snags and caves. It can be found north into Canada, with records to the south that indicate that it may migrate as far as Guatemala, a range that to my knowledge can't be rivaled by US colonial bat species. Plus it is one of the few bats to occur in all 50 states (I'd have to verify for Alaska though) with a non-migratory subspecies in Hawaii. Thus it can be of local interest to kids anywhere in the U.S. Tweak the story so that it isn't a single baby -- these almost always have twins. But this would be even better for the story -- both twins get separated from Mom but can talk to each other, facilitating dialog to introduce other aspects of the lesson. There are good biological observations on development of young -at what age they can fly for example- to support the story accurately. Females leave young in foliage to feed -- perhaps you can construct the story such that when the twins are nearly independent the female is obstructed from rejoining them. Have them interact with other bat species that might be colonial, live in caves, and hibernate rather than migrate to illustrate some of the diversity in bat natural history, but then loosely follow along with others of their own species in heading south --a possibility supported by observations of little waves of these bats passing through areas in migration. There are also some observations for this species on how they fly and what they eat, timing of migrations, etc. Because these bats roost in trees during the daylight, you can use remote sensing to show importance of trees in forest stands and especially riparian areas in deserts and prairies that might be of importance. Into Mexico and south you can pick up the interactions with frugivores, and even pollen feeders, (relating to importance of bats for tropical forest maintenance via seed dispersal and pollination), or oddities like vampires, fish-eaters or even carnivorous bat species.

Don't forget to explain a little about echolocation. It after all, is one of nature's most exquisite techniques for remote sensing.

I'm not sure how to advise you on how to go from here except to do a rewrite. My schedule is really busy this summer with long periods out of the office; however, I have spread your requests out among several co-workers on various projects.