View as Microsoft Word* | View as PDF
Name _____________________
Buddy ________________________
Compare the Bears
1) Directions: Pick two kinds of bears to study. Find out how big they are, what they eat, and where they live. Then think about how the bears compare.
(Note to the teacher: This page can be used as an assignment sheet by deleting the sample responses.)
| Species |
Sloth bear |
Polar bear |
| Length |
5 to 6 feet long. |
7 to 10 feet long. |
| Weight |
175 to 310 pounds. |
440 to 1760 pounds. |
| Food |
Termites, fruits, plants, eggs, insects, honey, and carrion (already dead animals). |
Seals, walrus, a few narwhal or beluga, carrion (already dead animals), berries, plants (there are not many to eat). |
| Range |
Grasslands, and forests around India. |
Way north, Alaska, Canada, Europe, Russia, icy areas around the shorelines. |
| Special Features |
- Able to suck up termites, making a sound that can be heard over 330 feet away
- Shake trees to get fruit
|
- Run up to 25 miles per hour
- Have black skin under their fur
|
| Hibernation Pattern |
Don’t hibernate but may get slow and sleepy for a short time each year |
Don’t hibernate but may do “walking” hibernation |
| Endangered Species |
Habitat loss and poaching |
Oil spills and toxic waste in their food supply |
| Compare |
The biggest sloth bear is smaller than the smallest polar bear. Polar bears are hunters, sloth bears are not. A sloth bear eats nothing from the ocean. They both eat carrion and some plants, but their diets are very different. The polar bear lives near the north pole where it's really cold, and the sloth bear lives around India where it is hot. A polar and sloth bear would never meet, except maybe in the zoo. |
What They Eat
2) Directions: Write what each bear eats. The foods they both eat goes in the center, where the circles overlap.
Kind of Bear: Sloth BearKind of Bear: Polar Bear
3) Directions: Draw a picture of each bear on art paper. Show the bear doing what it does most of the time. Write sentences to tell what is happening in the picture.
Have your fifth-grade buddy help you write down where you got the information.
The Bear Den, www.bearden.org*
Wexo, J. (2000). Bears. Wildlife Education. San Diego, CA.
< Return to Meet the Bears