(chaotic music) - Hello, friends and welcome to "Live from the Opera House: It's Storytime!"

I'm your host, Ben Whiting, and on this show every week we're gonna have a great story read by a special guest, and then perform a fun activity based on that book.

The materials you'll need will always come from things you can find around your house or in your classroom.

And we'll be learning about things like science technology, engineering, math, and local culture.

Now, on to today's book.

(chaotic music) Do you know what a raptor is?

It's a very special kind of bird.

And today, we're gonna be learning about these birds.

Raptors actually feed on live pray.

Now, some eat during the day, some eat at night, but they have some characteristics that set them apart from other birds.

They have very strong feet called talons, they have hooked beaks, and their diet is made entirely out of meat.

So that's what we're gonna be learning about today in today's story, but we're also going to be, for today's activity, making a very special type of drink carrier.

This way we can avoid those plastic rings that come around soda cans that go into the environment and it's no good.

(chaotic music) To make our special drink carrier, the items you're going to need today include some cardboard, a paint stirrer stick, Popsicle sticks, rubber bands, some glue, string, and tape, and also some wax paper or aluminum foil.

Now, if you don't have these materials readily available, that's okay.

Just go ahead and watch today's episode, and you can come back and watch it again later and participate in the activity.

(chaotic music) Now, today's special guest is Kaitlyn Bohnet from the North Sky Raptor Sanctuary.

North Sky Raptor Sanctuary is a nonprofit that helps rescue injured birds and educate the community on birds of prey and how they make the world a better place.

And with her is her very special friend named Vega.

Vega is a red-tailed hawk who travels around the community to schools and events to help educate people on hawks and other birds of prey.

And with that, take it away, Ms. Bohnet.

(chaotic music) - Hello, my name is Kaitlyn Bohnet and I am the executive director and co-founder of North Sky Raptor Sanctuary.

We are a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to the rehabilitation of sick, injured, and orphaned raptors, and returning them to the wild in a healthy and fit condition.

We are mostly dedicated to the rehabilitation point of things, but we do often do educational outreach programs and we always travel with a feathered companion.

Our educational ambassador today is Vega.

She's an adult female red-tailed hawk, and she is going to be reading a book with us today.

And that book is about raptors.

We like this book because it covers many different raptors across the world and it highlights their different adaptations and specializations that help them survive in the wild across our planet.

(chaotic music) This book is being read with permission from Scholastic Books.

Raptors are birds of prey that hunt and eat other animals.

Raptors are named raptors because they catch their food with their feet.

They have hooked beaks for tearing meat into bite-sized pieces.

If you think about their talons and their feet as a fork, you can think about their beak as the knife that helps them make it into swallowable bits.

Most raptors have strong feet with sharp claws that help them catch and hold prey.

Like those talons.

Raptors search for pray by looking and listening.

Raptors have between two and eight times better vision than that of us humans.

So that helps them find their prey.

They fly and hunt in different ways.

Some Raptors catch their prey in the air like falcons.

Others hunt for animals on the ground like red-tailed talks.

Some raptors snatch food from the water like osprey and eagles.

Others hunt for animals that are already dead.

Eagles also do this, but we mostly think of vultures.

Raptors may hunt during the day.

And those are called diurnal raptors.

And others hunt at night, which are nocturnal raptors like owls.

Raptors use different kinds of nests to care for their babies.

This northern harrier is nested in a field on the ground.

Some Raptors have large nests high in trees like this harpy eagle or other eagles and red-tailed hawks.

Others use holes to protect their eggs and chicks.

This is an elf owl, but our northern saw-whet owl and American kestrels also use holes.

They're called cavity nesters.

Some raptors have nests on cliffs or ledges.

Like this prairie falcon or the peregrine falcon.

And peregrine falcons have adapted to be able to use the sides of buildings and tall high-rises as nests or cliff ledges, which is a cool adaptation.

And others nest on the ground.

Like the harrier that we talked about a minute ago and the short-eared owl.

Raptors live almost everywhere in the world.

We have a red-shouldered hawk here in a marshland.

We have snowy owls up in the Arctic.

Barn owls nesting in between two billboard signs.

We have a Harris hawk up on a cactus over there.

And then we also have a collared forest falcon.

It is important to protect raptors and the places where they live.

Thank you so much for listening to about raptors and joining us in learning about the specializations of raptors and how they can live all across our planet.

(chaotic music) - Thank you so much for that fantastic reading, Ms. Bohnet.

Now it's time to take what we read and put it into action.

And to do that, we have with us Shelley Sissen-Burden, a teacher at the TCAPS Montessori School.

Ms. Sissen-Burden, how about you introduce yourself and get us started on today's activity?

(chaotic music) - Hi, my name is Shelley Sissen-Burden and I'm here with my friend.

After hearing about these amazing creatures called raptor,.

I thought, "I wanna help too."

just like Kaitlyn from North Sky Raptor Sanctuary.

- Were are here talking about raptors because their populations are pretty fragile and they're really cool.

So we wanna do our best to protect them.

- [Audience Member] Yay!

- Many raptors like turkey vultures and even eagles look for food and places where we dump our trash.

And some other raptors even fish in the water.

These are places where garbage like our plastic ring holders end up.

So for today's challenge, I'm inviting you to help us make a harmless drink holder for your water and your juice.

We're gonna start by thinking like inventors or engineers.

(chaotic music) Just like it's Kaitlyn's job to help sick and injured birds that are necessary for our planet, inventors and engineers work to solve problems to make the world a better place.

But inventors and engineers, initially, their ideas, well, they don't always work out.

(chaotic music) So they have to look at their problems again and come up with new and different ideas.

(bright music) They learn from their problems and they try again.

This series of steps is called a design process.

For today's challenge, it's gonna be helpful for you to brainstorm and sketch out a couple of ideas before you begin building.

While brainstorming, I wanted to try and figure out what the problem with these plastic rings really was.

So I'm gonna invite Jenna to put this on her hand.

Okay, using just this hand, she's gonna see if she can get the rubber band right back off.

Certainly isn't easy.

And that can be a real problem for birds and wildlife when they encounter these plastic rings.

So let's figure this out.

What can we do different?

Let's look at our supplies.

(chaotic music) So first off, you're gonna get some cans.

Secondly, you're gonna take your plastic ring and get rid of it.

This activity is gonna be possibly really messy if it can opens up or spills, so make sure you have some paper towel, some wax paper for spills, some duct tape, rubber bands, string, paint stirrers, and then some cardboard.

You, of course, can come up with some other ideas for this project and include your own supplies, but this is what we're working with today.

Let's get started.

So the first time Jenna and I tried this project, we realized that these cans are pretty heavy.

Initially, we tried just cardboard and they fell right on the floor and it was a big mess.

(chuckles) Based on some of the sketches we made, Jenna is using two paint stirrers on the bottom of her piece of cardboard.

And just to show you, the cardboard seem to be the right fit for the way we decided to design our holder.

Again, after working with our materials for awhile, we realized that the tape needed to be pretty sturdy.

So Jenna is putting the cardboard together and taping the outside, and then we're gonna reinforce it a little bit to make it even stronger.

While Jenna is working on constructing our frame for our holder, I wanted you to take a notice of some of the materials we're using.

This cardboard is biodegradable, along with our organic string.

Our paint stirrers are made of wood.

The tape is not, but one of the things we are considering in our design is that the risk between the tape and our traditional plastic holders is significantly different.

Jenna's making sure to reinforce the tape on the outside, on the top, as well as on the bottom.

And in just a minute, we'll look a little bit closer at that.

I'll be a little honest with you while she's working, my very first try didn't hold up at all.

And I recognized I needed to be a lot more like those inventors and engineers, and go back to the drawing board to think of some other ideas.

So let's take a peak.

Reinforced with some wooden stirrers on the bottom, extra duct tape on the bottom and the sides for support.

Looking good so far.

After our first try, we realized one paint stirrer was not gonna be strong enough, so we went back and got another one.

What Jenna and I decided to do next was tie the string and make sure that we tied it at least two times around the stick before we proceeded to tighten to the handle.

After our last spill, Jenna's also decided to add some duct tape.

Before you go any further, make sure your cans still fit.

After trying this a few times, Jenna thought ahead and decided to rip herself a couple strips of tape to have them at hand to add where she saw was needed.

Looks almost ready.

Here's the exciting part.

And there you have it, a harmless holder for your water and your juice.

(chaotic music) We're so lucky to live in this beautiful state.

These woods are amazing and they're filled with amazing creatures, just like the raptors we were learning about.

Just the other week, I was on a walk and I saw a pair of owls in these very woods and they had babies.

We're all gonna have to do our part to help keep this land beautiful.

So start thinking creatively and get to work on your drink holders.

(chaotic music) - Great work, everyone.

Well, that is it for today's episode of "Live from the Opera House: It's Storytime!"

brought to you from the beautiful, historic City Opera House in downtown Traverse City.

If you wanna watch future episodes or check out episodes from the past, you can do so by visiting tcaops247.com, michiganlearning.org, or tune into your local PBS station.

Thank you so much for being our wonderful audience.

My name is Ben Whiting, and until next time, stay safe, have fun, and keep learning.

Take care.

(chaotic music) - [Narrator] This program is made possible in part by Michigan Department of education, the State of Michigan, and by viewers like you.

(spring boings)