Duck Naturalist Unit Study

The Duck Naturalist — A 10-Week Unit Study

Turn a love of ducks into a full term of learning. The Duck Naturalist is a cross-curricular homeschool unit study for around age 13, built on real natural history and designed to feel like running your own museum exhibit by the end.

Over ten weeks, students explore duck biology and adaptations, life cycles, food webs, habitats, breeds and domestication, literature, and conservation — building toward a final exhibition and curator's talk. Each week centres on one big question and moves through five kinds of learning: reading, investigating, creating, writing, and hands-on exploring. Highlights include a feather-waterproofing experiment, an egg-and-embryo study, a pond food web, a design-and-budget challenge to build a duck habitat, a breed catalogue, a literary comparison of real versus storybook ducks, and a conservation research project.

The pack is built around *Raising Ducks for Beginners and Beyond* by Kristine Ellis, with the RSPB as a key resource for wild ducks, and pairs well with a picture book such as *Make Way for Ducklings*.

**What's included:**

- A 10-week student workbook with step-by-step activities, reflection prompts, and a badge to colour in each week

- A Parent & Teacher Guide with weekly teaching notes, safety guidance, and a materials checklist

- Printable research and investigation sheets

- Writing, art, and design portfolio checklists

- A simple assessment rubric

- A Feather Tracker for fact-checking and source-finding

- A certificate of achievement

- Front covers for parent and student

By the end, your naturalist will have a full portfolio of writing, art, and research — and their own museum-style exhibition to show for it.