One spring, your friend living in Minnesota eagerly sets up her new hummingbird feeders, and is thrilled to watch hummingbirds feeding on the nectar. However, she is disappointed when after just a week or two the hummingbirds disappear. What advice would you give her?

Question

A.  Set up a bell (conditioned stimulus) near the feeders so the hummingbirds make an association with the food.
B.  Set up flashing red lights that mimic the male neck feathers -- that should attract more males to the area.
C.  Set up the feeders again in the fall. The hummingbirds may have briefly traveled through during their annual spring migration.
D.  Wait till next year -- hummingbirds are a high-metabolism, semelparous species and have already reproduced and died.


Clarify question:
What is the key concept addressed by the question?

What type of thinking is required?

Gathering Content:
What do you already know about feeding behaviors in birds? What other information is related to the question? 

Choose Answer:
Given what you now know, what information is most likely to produce the correct answer?

Reflection on Process:
Did your problem-solving process lead you to the correct answer? If not, where did the process break down or lead you astray? How can you revise your approach to produce a more desirable result?

Answer 1

C.  Set up the feeders again in the fall. The hummingbirds may have briefly traveled through during their annual spring migration.

Clarify question:
What is the key concept addressed by the question?
Understanding what can explain the feeding behavior of hummingbirds, that are migratory birds.

What type of thinking is required?
In this question you are being asked to analyze the situation of the disappearing hummingbirds and come up with a recommendation for your friend.

Gathering Content:
What do you already know about feeding behaviors in birds? What other information is related to the question? 
This question comes from the section of textbook that focuses on migratory behavior. Hummingbirds do migrate during the year. Only one of the choices address migrations, the other options might be able to attract hummingbirds to a feeder if the hummingbirds remain in the area. None of the other strategies would work if the hummingbirds have already migrated away.

Choose Answer:
Given what you now know, what information is most likely to produce the correct answer?
Migrations are long distance 2-way movements. Typical bird migrations in North America involve flying South during the autumn and then return North in the spring. If a bunch of hummingbirds visit the feeders in the spring and then disappear then they will probably move back through the area in the fall during the reverse leg of the migration

Reflection on Process:
Did your problem-solving process lead you to the correct answer? If not, where did the process break down or lead you astray? How can you revise your approach to produce a more desirable result?
Were you able to pick the correct choice? The key to this apply question is to understand that migrations are 2-way, long distance mass movements of species.