Engage your students in evaluating the impacts of ecosystem change on resource availability critical to animals’ diets. Students will examine how adaptable the diet of bats – critical to healthy ecosystems all over the world - are in responding to changes in their food sources – insects! Students will explore the phenomenon through virtual dissections of bat stomach contents to learn what different species of bats eat. Led by a research scientist who studies bats, they will use museum collections to gather data as they compare and analyze the diets of several bat species. Their research will help them figure out which bat populations are likely to survive, thrive or decline as a result of changes in insect populations.
Part 1
Do all bats compete for the same food resources?
(20-30 minutes)
Part 2
How do bats’ physical features influence what they can eat?
(45-60 minutes)
Part 3
Will bat populations thrive or decline as food resources change?
(20-30 minutes)
Research Quest is a program of the Natural History Museum of Utah in partnership with The Utah Education Network
