Become a detective-solve a mystery!

Tracking animals is exciting! You have the opportunity to watch a story unfold.

Tracking provokes all kinds of questions and inquiry skills:

• Who traveled here?

• What were they doing?

• Where did they go?

• Why did they go there?

• When were they there?

• How did they get there?

So how do you get started?

Where to look: mud, snow, sand, soft soil, garden soil, near a bird feeder

What to look for & Questions to ask yourself while tracking

1. Who- which animal left the track? This is the identification portion of your mystery

2. What- what was this animal doing? This is the interpretive part of solving the mystery

3. When- did the animal leave the tracks? This is the timing or aging part of the mystery

4. Where- is the animal now? This is called trailing and involves following the tracks

5. Why- did the animal travel this space at this particular time? This is called ecological tracking and involves learning more about the environment and how the animal interacts in the environment

Solve the mystery

Use all of the knowledge you gained from your inquiry using the Tracking Expert Tool above to tell the animal's story. You can do this orally with storytelling, create a comic strip, write a mystery story starring yourself as the detective, write up a scientific report, act out the scene or any other creative outlet to portray your newly gained knowledge as a tracker.