ESL Voices

If bears can be trained to ride bicycles and balance beach balls, why not train them to use computers? Researchers at Oakland University are doing exactly this.  It appears that bears may have cognitive abilities comparable to those of primates such as chimpanzees.

ESL Voices Lesson Plan for this post with Answer Key.

Bear Deep in thought. Photo: BBC.

Excerpt: Black bears show counting skills on computers, By Matt Bardo, BBC Nature

“Black bears have demonstrated counting abilities, in a first for the species. Three captive bears took a series of number-based tests on a touch-screen computer, research published in the journal Animal Behaviour showed.

They had to choose between two different-sized sets of dots and were rewarded with food for correct answers. People don’t generally understand them to be as intelligent as they probably are, said Jennifer Vonk, the researcher who led the study.

Although bears have the largest relative brain size of any carnivore, their cognition is not well understood. Black bears have a large brain size in comparison to their bodies. They have been filmed doing some remarkable things.

Dr Vonk, an assistant professor in psychology at Oakland University said that the North American black bears were first trained to understand the process and equipment involved in the tests.

School in session.Photo- PeakOnline.

This is the first published work with bears working on a touch screen, she said. It hasn’t been done with any large carnivores. The experiment then involved presenting the bears with two sets of dots or arrays.

Basically we were looking to see if they can understand to choose less or choose more,..  They touched the screen to select one or other of the arrays, and were given food if they got the answer right.

The team wanted to ensure that the animals were not merely estimating magnitude, a skill that has been shown by many animals. We’re really trying to differentiate between the ability to perceptually discriminate amount from actually quantifying a number of items.

Sybils Den. Photo and website by Pat Rask.

So the team varied the pattern of the dots and the shaded area on which the arrays were shown, and in some tests the dots were also moving…These results are among the first to show that bears may have cognitive abilities that are equal to primates. I’ve been working for a while with these bears… but simultaneously I was working with a chimpanzee,.. I find that their abilities so far in terms of categorization and forming more abstract concepts seem quite comparable.” Read more…

ESL Voices Lesson Plan for this post

Level: Intermediate -Advanced

Language Skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. Vocabulary and grammar activities are included.

Time: approximately 2 hours.

Materials: student handouts (from this lesson) access to news article, and video.

Objective: Students will read the article with a focus on improving reading comprehension and learning new vocabulary. After reading this article, students will be able to decide if bears are intelligent enough to use computers. They will discuss and write an essay on this issue.

I. Pre-Reading Activities

Directions: Have students use a KWL chart such as this one by MSU.

II. While Reading Activities

Vocabulary-Word Inference

Directions: Students are to infer the meanings of the words in bold taken from the article. They may use a dictionary, thesaurus, and Word Chart by Education Oasis for assistance.

1. Although bears have the largest relative brain size of any carnivore, their cognition is not well understood.
2. The team wanted to ensure that the animals were not merely estimating.
3. We’re really trying to differentiate between the ability to perceptually discriminate amount from actually quantifying a number of items.
4. The team varied the pattern of the dots and the shaded area on which the arrays were shown.
5. The study found that bears did better when the size of the area corresponded to the number of dots.
6. They also found that the bears were capable of compensating for an area that was smaller or larger than normal.
7. Black bears in the wild are often solitary, non-social animals.
8. Similar tests on primate species allowed the scientists to compare the ability of the black bears with non-human primates.
9. These results are among the first to show that bears may have cognitive abilities that are equal to primates.
10. The techniques used to research the bears’ skills could be used in the future to look at bear cognition in more depth.

Questions  for Reading Comprehension True / False /NA

Directions: Review the following statements from the reading.  If  a statement is true they mark it T.  If the statement is  not applicable, they mark it NA. If the statement is false they  mark  it F and provide the correct answer.

1. People usually think Black Bears are intelligent.
2. Bears have the largest relative brain size of any carnivore.
3. Dr Vonk, is an assistant professor in psychology at Harvard University.
4. This is the first published work with bears working on a touch screen.
5. Basically the researchers were looking to see if bears could understand how to choose less or choose more.
6. Black bears in the wild are often social animals.
7. Similar tests on primate species allowed the scientists to compare the ability of the black bears with non-human primates.
8. These results are among the first to show that bears may have cognitive abilities that are equal to primates.
9. Dr Vonk was simultaneously working with orangoutangs.
10. The techniques used to research the bears’ skills could be used in the future to look at bear cognition in more depth.

 Grammar Focus: Using Adjectives  to Describe a Photo.     

Directions: Have students choose a picture from this lesson and write a descriptive paragraph using adjectives.

For a review of Adjectives visit ESL Voices Grammar

III. Post Reading Activities

Reading Comprehension Check

Directions: Have students use the  WH-question format to discuss or to write the main points from the article.

WH-How Questions

Who or What is the article about?

Where does the action/event take place?

When does the action/event take place?

Why did the action/event occur?

 KWL Chart

Directions:  Have students  fill in the last column of the KWL chart if they used one in the pre-reading segment of this lesson. They would list information they have learned from the reading.

Discussion/Writing Exercise

Directions: Place students in groups and have them answer the following questions. Afterwards, have the groups share their thoughts as a class. To reinforce the ideas, students can write an essay on one of the following discussion topics. Review ESL Voices Modes of Essay Writing.

1.  In these experiments the bears were tested on a touch-screen computer. How might this information be useful to humans in general?
2. The U.S. and Russia have trained oceanic dolphins to rescue lost naval swimmers and to locate underwater mines.  Do you think bears could be trained to help the military or regular people on land?   Provide examples.
3. Other than chimpanzees and dolphins, what other animals might be trained to help humans?  Explain in what ways.

 IV. Listening Activity 

Video Clip:  Susie the Bear

“Two minute, 10 second color with sound film clip of Earl Pilgrim narrating a story about workmen befriending a black bear named Susie on a F. E. gold dredge on the Hogatza River in the Koyukuk Hughes mining district. Clip is an excerpt from AAF-745 of the Earl Pilgrim Collection held by the Alaska Film Archives, a unit of the Alaska & Polar Regions Department in the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks.”

Pre-listening Activities

Review vocabulary from the video.

1.  gangplank |ˈgaNGˌplaNGk| noun -a movable plank used as a ramp to board or disembark from a ship or boat.
2. scrap  |skrap|-noun-(scraps) bits of uneaten food left after a meal, esp. when fed to animals.
3. on-board |ˈɑn ˈˌbɔ(ə)rd|- adjective [ attrib. ]- available or situated on a ship, aircraft, or other vehicle.

While Listening Comprehension

 True /False statements

Directions: Review the statements with students before the watching the video.  As students listen to the video if  a statement is true they mark it T  if the statement is  false they  mark  it F and provide the correct answer.

1.  Susie is a brown bear that lives in  Hogatza or  Hog river.
2. The crew started giving Susie scraps of food to entice her on the gang plank.
3. It took a long time to entice Susie on the gang plank.
4. They just let the gang  plank down and she’d  climb on board.
5. When the narrator (Earl Pilgrim) first met  Susie, she ran away from him.
6. One day Earl Pilgrim took 300 feet of movies of Susie.
7. In one film he took of Susie, she was standing next to a woman unrolling a paper full of scraps.
8.  According to Earl, Susie waited in a “lady-like” manner for the scraps too be given to her.

Video Link:  Susie the Bear

Post-Listening Activities

Questions for  Reflection and Discussion

Directions:Place students in groups and have them discuss the following questions.

1. The crew in this video trained the bear Susie to come onto the boat, eat, and play. Discuss some ways this type of behavior might be a bad idea. How might it be a good idea?
2. What do you think happened to Susie when the ship had to leave?
3. With your group members, make up questions that you would like to ask the crew.

Group Projects

Directions: Place students in groups and have them research bears and provide presentations with photos (from zoos), drawings, and information from other websites. Students might think about video taping bears in a zoo (if permitted) and presenting the video to the class.

ANSWER KEY