This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
Our school faces all the challenges that urban schools deal with; poverty, a thin budget, a dearth of interesting learning experiences for our students, etc. It is with all of this in mind that I’m writing to you today.
I attempt to provide my students with as rigorous and as hands-on an experience as I can. At least several times per week there is an instructional activity in my class other than the traditional “chalk and talk”. I find that days in which I do labs, group work with manipulative activities, self-guided learning stations, and whatever else are the best days in my class. When my students participate in activities other than notes & questions they can engage a multiplicity of intelligences. Likewise hands-on & inquiry based activities allow my students to channel their energy into something edifying & constructive. As I think of these things, I anticipate the Environment & Ecology unit I will be teaching in May, a part of Philadelphia’s core biology curriculum.
I would like to use owl pellets to show my students that their urban neighborhoods are part & parcel of the natural world which they seem to be innately curious about. If you are curious, an owl pellet is the regurgitated and indigestible remains of an owl’s prey. Ecologists dissect owl pellets to analyze the whole bones and exoskeleton fragments often found within. I use the materials I already have to conduct a much anticipated frog dissection every year. Having dissected owl pellets myself, I can easily see my students being just as excited to probe the varied remains found within an owl pellet as they are about frogs. Owl pellets are a simple, inexpensive, and engaging way to introduce students to food chains, trophic levels, predator/prey interactions, local Philadelphia fauna, and scientific inquiry. Philadelphia, including King’s own West Oak Lane neighborhood, is home to several species of owls. Owl pellets would expand student knowledge of their own neighborhood. Likewise, an additional inquiry based activity is beneficial both in preparing for the assessments I must set my students to and to their own cognitive development.
I am asking, then, for 100 owl pellets and two owl pellet/food web instructional posters. The activity would take place in mid-May. I would set up students individually or in pairs (I teach about 110 students per day). Then, I would guide them through 2 or 3 days of inquiry… identifying the remains within their pellet and then using that information to create a food chain of the pellet producing owl. A trip to Awbury Arboretum, a 55 acre site adjacent to King, would follow. At Awbury, the pellet inquiry would be connected to the identification of habitats and possible owl predation habits.
Of course, this al starts with the owl pellets; and for this my students and I ask your assistance. Thank you.
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