Bird Call Game

Here's a Scout contest I'm developing to help teach scouts to identify bird calls.   Properly identifying bird calls can be used to identify some of the animals for Second Class rank requirements (10 animals total are required), or part of the Bird Study merit badge (5 bird calls required).

The contest is a computer based audio file that has 10 bird calls from common birds he scouts may encounter in the Midwest.  Set up your PC or laptop at the beginning of the meeting.  Play the audio file in a continuous loop.  Each boy can enter his answers on a plain lined form, numbered one through ten.  At an appropriate point in the meeting, you can pass out the optional contest sheet that has each bird's name and image and play the file again. (You may start out with the picture form to start if you think the lined form will be too difficult for the scouts).  After the meeting, you can pin up or review the answer sheet.  Do this with the audio file running.   That way the scouts can start to associate the calls with the answers. This contest is not a contest to see who scored the most correct answers, but is intended to be a teaching aid for them to learn.

Files (top)

The self extracting zip files contain the audio file and a MS Word document that has the instructions, score sheet, and answer key.  I have created three separate files, each with the same audio file but in a different format in order to accommodate differences between machines.  The WAV file format is the largest, followed by the AU format, with the MP3 format being the smallest.  You can go to http://www/mp3.com to find links to several shareware MP3 programs for download. These are self-extracting zip files.