What We’re Watching: Rodents and Raptors

Greetings from The Paley Center for Media’s Education Department!

Welcome to the latest installment of “What We’re Watching.” Twice a month the education department reaches out to the community with tips and ideas for consuming media with kids by highlighting different themes that connect to two selected programs, one for younger viewers and one for older viewers, each with related activities and resources.

Watching media alongside your kids is a perfect jumping-off point to making media literacy a part of your everyday lives. Familiarizing yourself with the basics is a great first step. You can view our first newsletter about media literacy best practices archived here. We also recommend the National Association for Media Literacy Education’s Parents Guide—it’s a terrific introduction!

‌What We're Watching: Rodents and Raptors

We are a species living in a shared ecosystem with creatures as diverse as the soft and furry mammals we may keep as pets to the sharp, keen-eyed birds of prey that could never be domesticated. In the narratives we experience, both fictitious and real, animals are often performers, actors essential to dramatize emotion and conflict. Many of our favorite tales are filled with four-legged, winged, finned, woolly, and insectile critters that are altruistic like the eponymous spider of Charlotte’s Web or cruel like the fratricidal Scar of The Lion King. Animals can be our greatest storytellers when we humans have the patience to listen. As temperatures rise, we welcome the Spring season and our Earthly neighbors flying back from their Winter homes or awakening from the quiet of hibernation.

This Week's Recommendations for Younger Viewers

Lyla in the Loop: “How to Hamster” (2024)
Recommended for Grades K+
Available on PBS Kids YouTube channel

PBS Kids’ newest animated series, Lyla in the Loop, features the energetic and inquisitive Lyla, a seven-year-old who puzzles and problem-solves, using critical thinking to help her family and community. In this episode, Lyla’s youngest brother Luke is excited that he will be caring for the class pet, Samantha the Hamsta (Sammy for short), over the weekend. Taking his responsibility very seriously, Luke studies the Hammy Manny (Hamster Manual) to learn Sammy’s needs. However, when the furry little rodent escapes, Lyla swings into action, guiding her younger brother to analyze the problem and use both research and experiential knowledge to brainstorm possible solutions and find their runaway hamster!

Viewing Questions

What does “the Hammy Manny” say are the three things that Sammy needs?
Why is the “the Sammy Scrapbook” so special for Luke and the other children in his classroom?
Why does Sammy look bored when Luke is showing her his favorite things?
What time of the day is Sammy active, when is she resting?
When Sammy escapes, where are the places she runs to and hides in?
How do Lyla and Luke use what they learned when Sammy escaped to create something that Sammy likes?
When you look at the pets, or neighborhood animals in your life, what do you notice are things they like to do? Is it something you like to do too?

Additional Resources

Read

The World According to Humphrey by Betty G. Birney

Hamster Princess series by Ursula Vernon

National Geographic Kids: Squeak! by Rose Davidson

This Week's Recommendations for Older Viewers

Raptors: A Fistful of Daggers: “Meet the Raptors” (2024)
Recommended for Grades 6+
Available on PBS

The Nature series on public television has long established a distinct prominence in brilliant and stunning cinematography. In their latest series on raptors, the program soars to new heights. Using drone video to mirror the breathtaking flight of these graceful aviators and powerful lenses to bring the majesty of birds like the African crowned eagle into our living rooms, the program is a feast of intimate, detailed close-ups, exhilarating vistas, and thrilling, action photography. In this first episode of a two-part series, viewers move from chilling encounters with birds of prey whose “ancestors hunted our own” to the small insect-eating falconets with “the highest hit rate of any raptor.” Survival rates are dramatized by the intense competition among young eagles and the parenting tricks of burrowing owls protecting their young from other predators. We witness the training ground for young sparrowhawks as they “master timing, anticipation, and aerial agility” and fly along the migratory route of Amur falcons covering “fourteen countries, two continents and an entire ocean.” Raptors can be noiseless hunters with feather structures that wrap their wings in silence like the great gray owl or enriched by extraordinary vision like the golden eagle whose eyes have five times the density of a human’s visual cells. The world these incredible birds see and hear is beyond our senses. So different from the world we see, hear and smell. Yet knowing their story, imagining their point of view can extend our imagination into the realm of dreams. A point of view different from ours but one that awakens us and reminds us to honor the home planet we share with these remarkable raptors.

Viewing Questions

What are the three common traits of raptors?
What are some of the problems raptors encounter when trying to survive and raise their young?
Burrowing owls in the Badlands of South Dakota have an interesting method of attracting insects to nurture their babies. What is it?
What are some lessons learned by the sparrowhawk about hunting moves like the “ambush” or “all-out pursuit?”
How did human hunters impact the population of Amur falcons along their great migratory flight?
How does the great gray owl’s enormous facial disc help the bird hunt its prey?
What is the extraordinary ability of the turkey vulture regarding detecting dead prey?
Raptors are considered “apex predators.” How does this role define their place in our ecosystem and how do they impact humans?
If birds of prey are defined as descendants of meat-eating birds, what unusual South American bird can be considered a raptor?

Additional Resources

Read

Raptors of the World by James Ferguson-Lees and David A. Christie

Raptors: The Curious Nature of Diurnal Birds of Prey by Keith L. Bildstein

A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life of the World’s Smartest Birds of Prey by Jonathan Meiburg

Watch

Kes (1970)

The Eagle Huntress (2016)

All that Breathes (2022)

As always, if you have any questions, thoughts, or ideas, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at eduny@paleycenter.org.

Happy viewing,

Carlos Pareja

Manager of Education