Activity Summary

• Describe the living arrangements of a bat colony.
• Define the word "guano."

Educational Goals
Students will be able to:

• Explain how water and limestone interact to form caves.
• Define "troglobite," "trogloxene," and "troglophile."
• Describe some of the dangers of cave exploration.
• Explain how water makes cave rock formations.

Materials Provided

• Click to download Handout 6: Reading Follow-up Coloring Page (gif image)
  (Coloring pages shows a picture of Jenny and Carlos sitting on a rock eating lunch and Bat shows them the cave animals on the ground. Carlos point at the them, which are camel backed cave cricket, blind millipede, and daddy longlegs. Numerous bats are hanging upside down from the ceiling in the background.)

Procedure

1. Distribute Handout 6: Reading Follow-up Coloring Page.
2. While students are coloring, talk about Discussion Questions, below.
3. Incorporate New Words into writing and vocabulary lessons.
4. Assign writing topics to advanced students.

Discussion Questions

1. What are the three groups of cave animals?
   (Troglobites, trogloxenes, and troglophiles.)

2. Encourage the class to pronounce the words out loud as a group. Although the words are long, they have a musical, amusing sound. Revisit the Rock Music song to help.

3. In which categories are the following animals: bat, pale cave fish, earthworm?

4. What would happen to cave animals if a bat colony were scared away?

5. Imagine a cave with no bat colony. What would happen if a bat colony moved in?

6. Where on your picture are crickets, the bat colony, and guano? Why are the bats upside down?

New Words for Lesson 3.1

Grade Level	Volcabulary
All grades	colony, droppings, energy, guano, millipede
Kindergarten	hard, ice, loose, rocks, sleep
Grade 1	butter, chatter, children, finger, joke, knee, scared, splash
Grade 2	sandwich, secret, stomach, supper, flashlight
Grade 3	stiff, critter, cricket, celery, odor, peanut

Writing Assignment: Grade 2-3
Write a poem about cave animals that live in the dark. How can they find things in the dark? What do they eat? Do they have strange names?

All USGS teaching packets are based on National Education Standards.