Happy Groundhogs Day, 1997

In honor of the age-old method of watching for spring, this high-tech report is brought to you by Mr. Murray's 7th Grade students of Dolphin Senior Public School in Mississauga, Ontario. We're sure you'll enjoy their report.

When you finish, try this: Conduct your own research and see if you can answer the first Challenge Question of the season:

Challenge Question #1
"When do groundhogs really come out of hibernation where you live?"

To respond to this question, please follow the instructions at the bottom of this page. Using the information you provide, we'll make a map to show when and where spring really begins for groundhogs.

After you read our report, we'd be happy to answer any questions! Each blue link takes you to a full page report written by members our class.
Mr. Murray's Students
rodmurr@astral.magic.ca

• History of Groundhog's Day
  Groundhog Day began as Hedgehog Day, but when settlers came to North America they couldn't find hedgehogs, and since the behavior of the groundhog is so similar to the hedgehog they substituted hedgehogs for groundhogs. Early settlers hoped for signs of an early spring so they could begin planting and shorten the time to harvest. They wanted the groundhog to emerge and stay out as a prediction to spring. But these settlers did not realize that the groundhog sleeps later than European hedgehog and is unlikely to come out of its burrow in the middle of winter on February 2nd.

• Hibernation
  The very first thing that a groundhog's body does in the spring is raise its heart rate up to 80 beats per minute. Then its body, which has been inactive all winter, begins shivering to warm itself. Just waking up takes several hours, but of course this is because the woodchuck has been asleep all winter.

• Natural History of Groundhogs
  Groundhogs can have young when they are a year old. After hibernation, the male finds the female and they both mate in a burrow, between March and April. The mothers are pregnant for 31-32 days. They have 2-6 young in a litter.

  

• Distribution Map
  The North American Groundhog covers a lot of territory over the United States and Canada. In which provinces and states are they found? Why do you think they're not found in certain regions?

• Accur acy of Groundhog Predictions
  Groundhog Day organizers brag that their groundhog forecasts are 70 to 90 percent accurate, but meteorological records prove that the groundhog's success rates are pretty low. We contacted David Phillips, Canada's most popular weatherman and Senior Climatologist with Environment Canada's Atmospheric Environment Service, who studied weather data for the past 30 to 40 years to find out how accurate they really are.

• Inte rview With Punxsutawny Students
  We wanted to know some information about Punxsutawny Phil, the "official" groundhog who's based in Pennsylvania, so we wrote to some Junior high schools and asked them.

• Bibliography
  You may wish to visit this page of resources that we used. It's a good starting point for some individual research on any questions you come up with to go along with our report!

• Acknowledgements

  
  The class would like to thank many people and organizations for the information they sent and for corresponding with us.

How to Respond to Challenge Question #1:

1. Address an E-mail message to: jn-challenge-spring@learner.org
   [Click here to view Signs of Spring Challenge Question responses]

2. In the Subject Line of your message write: Challenge Question #1

3. In the body of the message, give your answer to this Challenge Question:

"When do groundhogs really come out of hibernation where you live?

Be sure to name the sources you used to find this information. You may want to contact a local nature center or naturalist and see if they can help you.

If possible, try to find this information:

• What is the average daily temperature in your region when groundhogs emerge?
• What is the photoperiod? That is, how many hours between sunrise and sunset?(To learn more about photoperiod, see Mystery Class .)
• In what ways might temperature and photoperiod be important to a groundhog?