One of the great things about living where I do is that a walk in the woods is always just a few steps away. One of my favorite things about walking in the woods is finding all kinds of neat, natural things including dropped moose and deer antlers. While those are rare finds, I do regularly come across owl pellets on my walks.
An old SciShow Kids video (embedded below) explains what an owl pellet is and what can be learned by dissecting an owl pellet.
Unfortunately, most students don’t get the experience of walking in the woods and finding owl pellets. You can order owl pellets from a science lab supply company or you could have your students virtually dissect an owl pellet. Kid Wings is a website all about birds. The site includes a virtual owl pellet dissection activity called Sherlock Bones. In the virtual owl pellet dissection students pick apart an owl pellet, examine the bones inside it, then match those bones to the skeleton outline they’ve been provided.
This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission. Sites that steal my (Richard Byrne’s) work include CloudComputin, TodayHeadline, and 711Web.
