From Helpless to Ready: teacher key

Baby Animals, grade 8 edition, written for 8th grade. Giraffes are born ready to move and pandas are born pink and blind. See how scientists place newborns on a spectrum, from foals to orangutans.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. Where on the spectrum do giraffes sit?
   • At the self-sufficient end (answer)
   • At the helpless end
   • In the middle
2. Why must a foal nurse early?
   • It needs to find a pouch
   • It absorbs antibodies much worse after 12 hours (answer)
   • Its nest is cold
3. What does a kangaroo's swollen teat do?
   • Warms the egg
   • Feeds the mother
   • Holds the newborn in place (answer)
4. What did Konrad Lorenz find in the 1930s?
   • Birds hatched with no parents follow what they first see (answer)
   • Birds cannot hatch in incubators
   • Ducklings fly at one day
5. Why do emperor penguins begin nesting in winter?
   • Winter is warm
   • The chick comes out when food is most plentiful nearby (answer)
   • Eggs hatch in a week
6. What does spectrum mean here?
   • A kind of egg
   • A winter storm
   • A range from one end to the other (answer)

Words

• precocial: ready at birth
• colostrum: first milk
• imprinting: early following
• spectrum: range
• weaned: off mother's milk