Owl pellets are commonly dissected by students to learn more about what owls eat. Owl pellets are full of bones from the animal the owl ate and students can dissect the pellet to find the bones. It is a great opportunity for a hands-on life science lesson that is engaging. There is a lot to learn from owl pellets and it can tie to multiple life science standards that you might need to teach.
What is an owl pellet?
Owls hunt for small rodents, bugs, and even small birds. Owls will typically eat their prey whole. In their stomach, the digestive process starts and it can’t digest the bones, teeth, and fur of its prey. These extra parts from the digestive system are formed into a tight pellet or fur ball inside the owl. The owl then spits up this pellet or fur ball when it has an opportunity. Owl pellets come in various sizes, but are about the size of one of your smaller fingers.
Included in this article are some tips and tricks that I use when doing the owl pellet lab with my students. These ideas could work for multiple grades and tie to standards from upper elementary school to upper middle school. I teach middle school and it can be challenging to find good hands on labs for life science, but owl pellets are an excellent option for this domain of science.
Hopefully some of these tips and tricks can make your integration of this lab a little easier! I also have included the lab report sheet that I use for this lab activity, FREE on our TPT store here!
1. Materials
Materials will vary depending on what you have available to you, but here is what I recommend. First, I recommend having one owl pellet for every couple of students. There is typically enough bones in one owl pellet to keep the students engaged and working on the assignment. You can do one per student, but of course the cost of the lab goes up.
Another essential material that I would recommend would be trays to dissect the owl pellet on. It makes clean up easy and everything is contained in one place. If trays are not available, then paper towels will provide a similar function.
Next, you will need tweezers or something else to separate the pellet. I have seen teachers have students use toothpicks, and that seemed to work. Some students break the toothpicks as they separate the pellet and feel they are too close to the owl pellet but it works.
The last essential material that you will need is an Owl Pellet Bone Chart. This will help the students to determine what bones and animals are in the pellet. Just google “Owl Pellet Bone Chart” and you will have more free printable options than you know what to do with.
The materials given for this activity include (per group):
- Owl Pellets (One pellet for every two students)
- Trays or Paper Towels (Based on # of groups)
- Tweezers or Something to Pry and separate (tooth picks)
- Owl Pellet Bone Chart (# of students)
In my opinion, these are the essential materials. You can add any dissection tools that are age appropriate that you have. Also, sometimes students feel more comfortable with goggles but that isn’t necessary at all. Adding something like goggles makes the experience more memorable for students. Also, if you want to sick the students out before the dissection show them this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PfjN2ZSmdA. Some students will love it and others will hate it, it just depends on the students. Showing this can become a management issue and even sick students out to a point that they don’t want to participate. I have never had that problem, just an FYI from another teacher. You could also use magnifying glasses, but that is not essential for recognizing all of the bones.
Extra Materials:
- Goggles
- Other Dissection Tools
- Owl Regurgitating Owl Pellets Video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PfjN2ZSmdA)
- Magnifying Glasses
2. Set-up
The set up and preparation for any lab is very important. If set up for hands on labs isn’t easy, teachers can get overwhelmed and they simply stop doing them. With proper planning, a lot of this hands-on lab can be completed before it’s time for the activity. Student helpers are so valuable when it comes to prepping for hands on activities in the classroom. If you can get those trays that I recommended in the materials section, then have a student help prep the trays with the needed materials. All you have to do is tell the students what needs to be on each tray and let your student helpers get the trays ready for class. Students can also do this with paper towels, it just takes more time and space.
Another method of setting up labs is laying all of the materials out in a line. Go over your expectations for the groups and list the materials on the board. Let the students know exactly what is needed for each group and let the students move through the assembly line. As they go past the trays, they pick up a tray and as they walk past the tweezers, they get two tweezers. It is a basic method but saves a lot of time.
3. Directions/Steps
Before you do this activity in class you should consider your directions or steps. I have included my steps as a guideline, but make sure you consider what is appropriate for your own classroom.
Steps
1.Receive instructions from teacher after the bellringer.
I always start my classes with a bellringer. My students come into class and have to answer two review questions on past content. This is a great procedure that I can’t live without. For other great procedures check out this article here. After the bellringer, I explain the instructions to the students.
2. Dissect the owl pellet using the tools provided in a safe manner.
Before you start the dissection, you should go over all of the materials with your students and your expectations of the use of those tools. With hands on science lessons, the volume of the students almost always escalates. So, it is to your advantage to have all expectations stated before they begin. I would also recommend having a quiet signal so you can quickly get the students’ attention if needed.
3. Complete Lab Report on the dissected owl pellet.
The students will take their time dissecting the owl pellet. This is a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing. It is a good thing because they are engaged and it can be a bad thing because we only have so much time. You might need to put a timer on the board so your students know exactly how much time to complete the dissection. You want them to have enough time to fill out the lab report.
Check out the lab report sheet I use here for FREE!
4. Construct a realistic model of what the creature was using its bones.
After the lab report, the students can take the bones and try to construct a realistic model of one of the animals the owl ate. There are free skeleton models of various animals that owls eat. The students can use these models to guide their construction.
5. Clean up (Bonus Tip)
Always leave time to clean up. With paper towels and trays, this shouldn’t be difficult. One weird tip that I recommend is collecting all of the bones after the lab. This sounds extremely weird, but this will allow you to almost do the same lab next year as a bone sort and you don’t have to purchase the owl pellets again. I know it isn’t ideal, but if you don’t have that much funding for science it can save you 30 to 60 dollars a year.
Being a science teacher, I always try to encourage hands on lessons because these lessons typically stick with the students. Engage your students with this hands-on science lesson!
If you want more hands-on science lessons, check out our STEM ideas here!
Another great middle school science activity is this Monster Genetics Activity, click here to check it out!
Thank you for Continually Learning with us!
Kyle and Sarah
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