Last updated: March 19, 2023
Lesson Plan
Bison Life Cycle
- Grade Level:
- Upper Elementary: Third Grade through Fifth Grade
- Subject:
- Science
- Lesson Duration:
- 30 Minutes
- Common Core Standards:
- 4.RF.4, 5.RF.4, 4.RI.1, 4.RI.3, 5.RI.5, 4.W.2, 5.W.2
- Thinking Skills:
- Remembering: Recalling or recognizing information ideas, and principles. Understanding: Understand the main idea of material heard, viewed, or read. Interpret or summarize the ideas in own words. Analyzing: Break down a concept or idea into parts and show the relationships among the parts.
Essential Question
How long do bison live to be?
Objective
Students will understand the life cycle of the bison and compare it to a human life cycle.
Background
All living things go through changes in their lives. Humans start out as infants, grow into toddlers, children, teenagers, and finally adults. The cycle from birth to death in modern humans usually takes about 80 years.
Preparation
In the wild, the bison life cycle takes less than 20 years. This means that it has less time to grow, learn, and pass along its genes to later generations. The animal must gain the skills to survive and reproduce at a much earlier age.
Materials
Calves are born usually in the late spring. They are usually reddish in color and weigh between 30 and 40 pounds. Because they must survive on the open prairie, newborn bison calves are also precocial, meaning that they can stand and walk within minutes.
Calves nurse with their mothers for the first 6 months of life before they are weaned onto a diet of grass. Male calves can become completely independent of their mothers at this point, and females usually do a few months later.
Young bison may remain with their mother's herd or venture out to find another. During this time, they learn social behaviors and establish themselves in the social order of the herd.
Females become reproductively mature at about 2 years old, males at about 5 years old.
The breeding season, also known as the rut, begins in late summer and can run until September. Males will “tend” a chosen female by staying near to her and fighting other males that attempt to challenge.
Adult bison are the largest land mammals in North America. Males can weigh up to 2,200 pounds and females up to 1,200 pounds.
In the wild, the American bison lives around 12-15 years. In captivity, they can live to be almost 30.
Image of bison life cycle descriptions than can be cut to match images
Download Bison life cycle descriptions
Lesson Hook/Preview
When does a human become an "adult"? When does a bison become an "adult"? Are they the same or different?
Procedure
1. Print out the bison life cycle pictures and descriptions and cut them to size.
2. Separate the bison life cycle pictures and descriptions into two piles and mix up each pile.
3. Have class study the pictures and attempt to put them in life cycle order, from youngest to oldest.
4. Read each description and have class attempt to match the description to the proper picture