If you are a Life Sciences teacher who would like to use video in support of your efforts but need something that furthers your progress in meeting your State Science Content Standards, this DVD is for you.

"Hummingbirds! A Natural History" consists of a DVD that contains a content-rich, visually arresting, intellectually mature, 30-min. video; and two in-depth, thoroughly researched and academically-reviewed teachers' guides as PDFs on the disc.  

The biological extremes that hummingbirds represent make them models for studies in evolution and co-evolution, competitive advantage, adaptability, gene expression, cardiovascular and neural systems, and many other Life Sciences topics -- including comparison to the human embodiment of these processes, sytems and the like. 

Intent: To provide truly unique curriculum materials that give instructors an array of choices regarding how best to use them as aids in fostering students' long-term learning about the Life Sciences while being supportive of progress in meeting states' Science Content Standards. 

Here is what your students will gain from this DVD at the high school AP and college levels:

Goal: Students will gain an appreciation for the specialized nature of the Hummingbird Family -- and how their specializations favor their survival.

Measureable Objectives and Outcomes (Expected Student Learning Results):

1.  Students will be able to name and describe four physiological adaptations of this family, and the survival problems these helped to solve.

2.  Students will be able to list and describe four anatomical adaptations of this family, and how these helped to meet survival challenges.

3.  Students will be able to compare and contrast the above survival strategies with eight human solutions to the same problems.

4.  Students will be able to list and describe 10 or more specialized hummingbird behaviors that improve their odds for survival.

5.  Students will be able to compare and contrast 10 specialized hummingbird behaviors to 10 specialized human behaviors.

6.  Students will be able to outline hummingbirds' natural history in the context of co-evolution, competitive advantage, and ecological niche.

The teachers' guides -- one for use in grades 9-12, the other for grades 9-12 AP and college --  provide the video's script and vastly augment its content.  They also show specifically supported Life Sciences education standards for seven states, as well as those set forth by the National Committee on Science Education Standards and Assessment.

Here are the first three of the 10 Discussion Questions/Thought Starters included in the teachers' guides:

1.  In evolutionary terms, what reasons may account for hummingbird radiation north and south from the equatorial regions in which they apparently first arose and whre the greatest numbers of species are still found?

2.  Why would some flowers find it to be reproductively advantageous to evolve away from insect pollination and toward hummingbird pollination?

3.  What hummingbird advantages might permit some species to survive global warming?  What disadvantages might result in the disappearance of some hummingbird species as a result of global warming?

A second video and accompanying Teacher's Guide also are included on this DVD.  Hummingbird Flower Mites: Covert Hummingbird Competitors shows in 7:45 min. how some mite species ride in the bird's nostrils for transport from flower to flower, where they feed and breed.  Darwin's theories of natural and sexual selection are compared, other concepts are discussed, and additional life forms are shown.

The DVD was produced by Nature Video Classroom's Tom Kaminski, a former Cal. State Long Beach and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo teacher, with the generous help of instructors and leading authorities from across the US who contributed to it and reviewed it for accuracy.  Without them, this project would not have been possible.

Please click here to generate an e-mail in which you may request more information or make other inquiries.