冬眠: researching hibernation and a bear awakening in a story
Compare 冬眠 as a subject researched in class with the hibernation from which a bear awakens in a story. Read the researcher and the awakening animal separately.
冬眠 as the subject of classroom research
冬眠 (とうみん) means hibernation. 「理科の授業で動物の冬眠について調べた。」 means “In science class, we researched animal hibernation.” Animal hibernation is the topic studied in science class.
冬眠について marks the subject of research, while 調べた reports the past research action. It does not say that the people researching hibernation themselves hibernated.
The bear and 冬眠から
「物語の熊は長い冬眠から目を覚ます。」 means “The bear in the story awakens from a long hibernation.” The bear is the subject awakening, and 長い冬眠 names the long hibernation from which it wakes.
冬眠から目を覚ます describes awakening from hibernation. The story supplies no particular date or health condition, and its long hibernation is not a fixed duration or method for every animal.
Studying the phenomenon versus waking from it
The first example reports people studying hibernation; the second describes a bear awakening in a story. The shared phenomenon 冬眠 has different roles as a research subject and the state the bear wakes from.
These are hibernation examples, so the meaning is not replaced by nightly sleep or a short nap. 長い remains attached to the story's bear without assigning a number of minutes or days.
Who does what in 動物の冬眠について調べた and 熊は冬眠から目を覚ます?
Show the answer and why
People researched animal hibernation in the class example; the bear awakens from long hibernation in the story. The research sentence does not say that the researchers hibernated. The bear's long hibernation is not replaced with a short nap or a fixed duration for all animals.