What can you learn from studying the pellets coughed up by owls? The owl pellet specimens will give my students the opportunity to find out.
My students are in the seventh grade.
They attend a rural middle school with approximately 400 students. Although they try to be too "cool" to get excited about learning, I have found that doing hands on activities in my science class can usually motivate most of them. They are great kids and I enjoy teaching them and learning from them.
My Project
Owl pellets are masses of bones, teeth, hair, feathers, scales and insect skeletons. They are produced and regurgitated by owls and other raptors which swallow their prey whole or in large pieces. By dissecting the owl pellets students will not only learn about owls, their diet, habitats, and characteristics, they will gain an understanding of the following:predator/prey relationships; the vertebrate endoskeleton; food chains and food webs in the owl's habitat.
Students will gain an understanding of the importance of how living things interact with the environment and that there is more to their world than what technology provides.
Dissecting owl pellets will give students the opportunity to discover what small vertebrates make up the owl's diet, study the skeletal remains of the prey and discuss the importance of owls in the environment.
The owl pellets you would be donating will allow students to work with other young "biologists" using not only science, but also art, language arts, and math to discover as much from the owl pellets as time allows.
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