There are an average of three human fatalities by bears in North America every year, which is low when you compare it to the 26 killed by dogs and the 90 killed by lightning annually. The lesson encourages researching human-bear conflicts and charting it on a calendar and a map to search for patterns. Scholars then determine what steps they could take to reduce the number of conflicts. Activity is the fourth in a five-part series.

Concepts

bears, black bears, animal behavior, animal diets

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Additional Tags

science

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Instructional Ideas

• If you do not live in an area with bears, research a local animal that has conflicts with humans and complete a similar lesson

Classroom Considerations

• The time required to complete the activity will vary greatly based on the ability of the students to work independently and outside of class
• Requires prior knowledge from the previous activity in the series in order to understand bear feeding behavior

Pros

• Includes cross-curricular connections to social studies, biology, geography, journalism, and library science
• Offers suggested discussion questions
• Extension ideas take the knowledge to a higher level of application

Cons

• None

Common Core

RST.6-8.3 RST.9-10.3 RST.11-12.3