Another Best-Day-of-School-Ever

We've been out-doing ourselves this year in having a great time while learning. We already went on a really terrific field trip. Then, on Friday, we had a science lab extraordinaire. Our science topic has been the human skeleton and bones, in general. We have a number of good labs and learning materials to work with for this unit, so it is fun to teach and it allows the students to understand how their body works. The final lab activity for this unit is an opportunity to dissect an owl pellet.

I didn't know about owl pellets until a couple of my own little children went to a summer science enrichment event while we lived in San Diego. There, among the many super activities they did, they dissected owl pellets. It is basically an object about the size of a stuffed grape leaf, that is made of compacted fur and bones from the rodents consumed by an owl. The owl swallows it prey whole, then a special internal organ collects all the refuse that is indigestible to the owl. There it is formed into a packet that is then "coughed" up by the owl several hours after it has eaten. Apparently, it is a good business in some parts of the country to trek around the woods (and old barns) where owls live and find these pellets and sell them to a science supply house. They are sterilized, wrapped in foil, and sold to teachers.

I've learned to apply for a grant each year, and generous people have funded my owl pellets for the fourth grade for three years in a row. They only cost about $2 each, but since we need fifty of them,  I look for help to buy them. All I have to do in exchange is send them a thank you letter, with photos of our lab (kids are incognito, of course) and have a couple of students write and tell about their experiences.

So, finally, Friday arrived. IT WAS OWL PELLET DAY!! We went to an unused portable class room up on our playground. This was to allow us to spread out and have plenty of room to work. Plus, the pellets are a bit smelly---mouse fur, you know. Also, there is SO MUCH excitement, that despite my importuning, it can get loud. Actually, once they got into the dissection, they were so intrigued that mostly there was the sound of enthusiastic "oohing" and "aahing."

First, they took it all apart and compared the bones to the chart they had to determine what type of prey the owl ate. We had a sheet with bird bones, and various types of rodents--shrew, rat, mouse, mole. They sorted the bones, looked at them with the magnifiers, excitedly called me over to admire a teeny little femur, and marvel over the orange color of a rodents incisors. Finally, I passed out a small plastic bag to each student and they could either share the bones so that each takes some of them home. Occasionally, one partner lucked out because the other student was too grossed out to take home a bag of bones. Then, we returned to our normal classroom, back downstairs, where we washed  hands thoroughly and wrote a little paragraph about the experience. I told them it could either be a personal narrative, or an informational paragraph. But, since it is writing class, we were going to do some writing. Actually, everyone was so enthralled with what we'd done, that they all had something to say.

 

Here's a rather large skull that one girl found. Note the really yellow teeth on the end of it? Now, isn't that just so exciting?? Wouldn't you be so excited to come to school if you could do cool stuff like this? We try to do it as often as possible. There was a great deal of engagement today, and people were remembering the things we'd read about and the ideas we'd discussed in past lesson. It was some pretty awesome actual education.

 

I purposely tried to obscure their faces, but see how involved they are? There was some serious science going on here. I love my job.