Owl Pellet Lab

    We are currently studying animal adaptations. As part of our unit, we dissected owl pellets. I know they are like owl hairballs, but the students had a great time and learned a ton. I divided this lab into three lessons.
    On the first day, I introduced the lesson on the Promethean Board with the KidWings owl pellet site. This an amazing site! It has owl pellet information, directions, an instructional video, and a virtual owl pellet. The virtual owl pellet is my favorite. It's a great way to show the students how to complete the dissection properly.
    On the second day, we went into the lab and began our dissection. I divided the students into pairs, gave them tweezers, gloves,  bone sorting and classifying sheets, and magnifying glasses. It took them about 30 minutes to complete the dissection.
    On the third day, we sorted our bones using the bone sorting sheet. Once we sorted the bones, we used the classifying sheet to help identify what our owls ate. Some students had multiple meals in their pellet. After we identified the meals, I had the students piece together and mount their skeletons with glue on black construction paper. At the end of our lab, we wrote a reflection on what we learned in our science journals.

Owl Pellet Lab on PhotoPeach