# Bag of Wonder: The Black Bear > Fatten up on acorns, find a den and sleep all winter. Look inside to hear a slow, slow heartbeat and meet the newborn cubs! A free interactive 3D exhibit for children aged 2 to 6, from Curiosity's Child in Troy, Michigan. - Interactive exhibit: https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/bear/ - Ages: 2 to 6. The story is pitched at the youngest; the tap cards give older children more to chew on. - Cost: free, with no sign-in, no ads and no tracking. - Works on: phones, tablets and computers, in a web browser. Sound on for the narration. ## What it is A black bear fattens up in fall, finds a den and sleeps all winter while her cubs are born. Look inside the den. Free, narrated 3D for ages 2 to 6. How to play: press play to hear the story (read aloud in Kelly's voice, with the words on screen). Slide the time slider back and forth to see any part again. Slide "Look inside" to see what is hidden inside. Tap any glowing button for a fact. ## The story 1. It's fall, poppets! A black bear is busy getting ready for winter. 2. She eats and eats: acorns, berries, nuts and bugs. All that food turns into fat, her warm winter blanket and lunchbox! 3. Now she needs a den, a safe, cozy place to sleep. She finds a spot under a fallen tree and goes in. 4. Snow falls, and the bear sleeps. For months she does not eat or drink. Her fat is her food! 5. Look inside! Her heart beats slow, slow, slow. It beats much slower than when she is awake. 6. Shh... let's breathe like a sleeping bear. Breathe in, slowly. And out. 7. In January, her cubs are born. They are tiny, no bigger than a squirrel! 8. Mom keeps them warm and feeds them milk, and the cubs grow a little bigger every day. 9. Spring! The snow melts, and Mom and her cubs come out of the den. Hello, world! 10. They are very hungry! Time to find fresh green shoots, juicy berries and yummy bugs. 11. Look, poppets: a bear's whole year on one table! Acorns, berries, a snow den, a paw print, a bear and a cub. ## The parts, and what we tell children These are the tap cards, word for word. - **Black bear**: Black bears live in Michigan's forests. They eat berries, nuts, plants and bugs, and they are good climbers. - **Fat**: Fat is a bear's winter blanket and lunchbox! It keeps her warm and feeds her all winter, so she gets very round in the fall. - **Nose**: A bear has a super sniffer, much better than a dog's. It can smell berries and acorns from far away. - **Big paws**: A bear's paws have long claws for digging and climbing. A bear walks on its whole foot, heel and all, just like you! - **Acorns**: Acorns are bear food. They fall from oak trees in the fall, and a bear gobbles lots of them to build up fat. - **Berries**: Bears love berries, too! Blueberries and blackberries are sweet food in summer and fall. - **A winter den**: A bear can sleep under a fallen tree, in a rock ledge, or in a hollow tree. She lines it with leaves to stay cozy. - **Slow heart**: A sleeping bear's heart beats only about 15 times a minute. When she is awake, it is more like 50! - **Slow breaths**: A sleeping bear breathes slowly and quietly, and she hardly moves. Her body is using as little energy as it can. - **Cubs**: Bear cubs are born in the den in January or February. They are tiny, only about a pound, and their mom's milk helps them grow. - **Winter sleepers**: Bats and wood frogs sleep all winter. Bears do, too, but a bear can wake up. Squirrels don't: they stay awake and eat the acorns they hid. ## Getting the science right What we checked, and the myths we steer around: - The American black bear (Ursus americanus) is the only bear in Michigan. Michigan's bears live mostly in the Upper Peninsula and the northern Lower Peninsula. - In fall bears eat almost nonstop (acorns, beechnuts, berries, plants, insects) and put on a thick layer of fat. The fat is their fuel for the whole winter. - A winter den can be under a fallen tree or stump, in a rock ledge or crevice, in a hollow tree, or a nest scraped in the ground; bears often bring in leaves and grass. The cut-away den on the page is storybook size: a real den is snug, hardly bigger than the bear. - A bear's winter sleep is not quite the same as the deep hibernation of bats, groundhogs and chipmunks, whose body temperature falls close to freezing. A bear's body temperature drops only about 10 degrees F, so she can wake up if disturbed. Scientists now count it as a kind of hibernation, so the page says "sleeps all winter" and that a bear can wake up. - Fat does two jobs: it is the winter's fuel and a warm blanket. A bear can put on a great deal of weight in a few fall months, which is why the story calls her "nice and fat" and the page says so kindly, never as a joke. - A bear's sense of smell is excellent (often said to be several times better than a bloodhound's); the Nose card says "much better than a dog's". - A hibernating bear breathes only a few times a minute and shifts position now and then. The page says she breathes "slowly and quietly" and "hardly moves", and the breathing beat just invites children to breathe slowly along with the glow: a calm-down moment, not a medical claim. - While asleep for months a bear does not eat, drink or pass waste; her body recycles it. Her heart slows from roughly 50 beats a minute to roughly 15 (researchers have measured as low as 8 to 10), and her breathing slows too. The card says "about 15" and "more like 50". - Cubs are born in the den in January or February, usually two or three at a time (the page shows two). A newborn weighs about a pound or less, is about as long as a hand (roughly 8 inches), blind and almost hairless; the mother nurses them while she dozes. "No bigger than a squirrel" is the comparison used. - Mother and cubs leave the den in spring, from late March into April or May, hungry; the cubs weigh several pounds by then. The page shows them about a third of their mother's length. - Who sleeps all winter: bats and groundhogs (woodchucks) hibernate deeply; wood frogs freeze solid and thaw in spring; bears sleep lightly. Squirrels do not sleep all winter: they stay active and dig up the nuts they buried (see the Oak, the Bat and the Frog). - The 3D bear is a general realistic bear model with a black coat, posed and animated on our own computer (it eats, walks and lies down); it is not a scan of one particular Michigan bear. - Safety note for grown-ups: wild bears should be watched from far away, never fed or approached. In bear country, store food and rubbish away from them, and back away slowly and calmly if you see one (Michigan DNR "Bear Wise"). ## How to use it with children Watch the whole story with the sound on, then slide back to the heart and ask, "What do you notice about her heartbeat?" Let the child tap along fast, then slow, slow, slow. Pull the "Look inside" slider to open the den at any time, and at the display table spread out the pieces and tap the acorns, the berries, the cub and the snowy den. Ask more than you tell, and let the child drive. Then step away from the screen: play "bear in winter": children gobble (pretend) acorns and berries, then curl up in a blanket "den" and breathe slowly while a grown-up taps a slow, slow heartbeat on the floor. Ask who sleeps all winter and who stays awake, then look for squirrels at a window. Real bears are for watching in books and videos, never up close. A few minutes together is plenty. The exhibit is a doorway to the real thing, not a replacement for it. ## Credits and licenses The real scans, maps and photographs belong to their makers, under the licenses below. The words, story and code are Curiosity's Child's. - The bear: ["Animated Realistic Bear – 3D Animal Model" by AnimalMesh 3D](https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/animated-realistic-bear-3d-animal-model-77a1fcdc92e14db698767da9ee09f84a) (CC BY), posed and sized in code - The blueberries: ["Gourmet Blueberry" by inciprocal](https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/gourmet-blueberry-62f6c6368c484dd6a85a2a162133d2e0) (CC BY) - The blackberries: ["BlackBerries" by 3Dee](https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/blackberries-1f5a007441124311a99d1f6156cb17f7) (CC BY) - The acorns: real scans of a konara oak acorn and its cup by [ffish.asia / floraZia](https://sketchfab.com/ffishAsia-and-floraZia) ([CC0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)) - The display table: [side table](https://polyhaven.com/a/side_table_01), a real scan from [Poly Haven](https://polyhaven.com) (CC0) - The forest hillside in fall, winter and spring and the cut-away den: watercolor paintings Kelly made with Grok - Real sounds from Freesound ([CC0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/), thank you!): [October woods](https://freesound.org/s/830253/) (NickTayloe), [a winter hush](https://freesound.org/s/260634/) (lwdickens) and [spring birds](https://freesound.org/s/683566/) (hargissssound) - Music-box waltz made for the Oak page - Snow, sleeping Z's, the heart, the log den on the table and the beetles are drawn in code - Narrated by Kelly, in her own voice ## More on the Garden & Pond shelf - [The Pumpkin](https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/pumpkin/index.md): From one little seed to a big orange pumpkin. Open it up! - [The Frog](https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/frog/index.md): From tiny floating eggs to a wiggly tadpole to a big bullfrog. Jug-o-rum! - [The Robin](https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/robin/index.md): Sky-blue eggs, a baby growing inside, hatching day, and first hops on the lawn. Cheep! - [The Bat](https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/bat/index.md): Hang upside down, see with your ears and swoop after a moth in the moonlight. Shh, poppets! - [The Egg](https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/egg/index.md): Look inside a hen's egg for 21 days: a tiny spot, a beating heart, a chick. Then it hatches, all by itself! Peep! - [The Oak Tree](https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/oak/index.md): One little acorn becomes a mighty oak. Watch the seasons change and meet who lives in it! ## About Bag of Wonder A free library of interactive 3D "look inside" science exhibits, made at Curiosity's Child, a licensed home daycare in Troy, Michigan. Secular and science-based; welcoming to all. - All exhibits and how we make them: https://bagofwonder.com/llms.txt - For grown-ups and AI assistants: https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/about/ - To cite: "The Black Bear", Bag of Wonder, Curiosity's Child (Troy, Michigan). https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/bear/