Spring Bear Buffet: Why Bears Eat Like Botanists Before They Eat Like Predators

Activity: Phenology Food Calendar, Build a Month-by-Month Bear Menu

Big idea: Students learn that wildlife diets aren’t fixed. They’re synced to the calendar of living things.

Step-by-step

• Choose your bear(s): black bear, grizzly, or both.
• Create food categories:
  • greens (grasses/sedges/forbs)
  • roots/tubers
  • insects
  • carrion (opportunistic)
  • berries (later)
  • nuts/seeds (fall)
  • human foods (only as a coexistence discussion category)
• Fill in the months with what becomes available locally.
• Early spring: greens and insects begin
• Late spring/early summer: more insects, emerging plants, sometimes early berries
• Late summer/fall: berries/nuts → hyperphagia
• Add the “timing twist”: Give half the class a “late snow year” scenario and half an “early spring year.” Ask: How does the menu shift? How might bear movement shift?

CER wrap-up:

• Claim: “In spring, bears eat like botanists because…”
• Evidence: cite their calendar timing.
• Reasoning: connect to energy, availability, and risk.

Teacher Tip

Have students draw two lines on their calendar:

• Natural buffet line (what appears when)
• Human buffet line (trash/feeders/compost availability all year)