Owl pellets are an awesome jump into inquiry, but teachers often miss the opportunity. Rather than telling your students what an owl pellet is and having them break one apart to find the rodent bones- why not leave a little mystery to the topic. Allow students to investigate the mystery rock you’ve found, using a hand lens and a tooth pick. If they need a little guidance ask them if they can break the rock apart or open it up, once one student does this, others quickly follow. It won’t be long till your class realizes that this rock is full of bones. What could it be? Why does it look like that? What does it remind you of? What other “rocks” do we learn about with bones in them?
After students are done let them learn a little from each other as you create a class list about what they have learned about these new and interesting “rocks”. Now is also your opportunity to correct any misconceptions and clear things up- no they are not fossils. You can even show them a quick video clip of an owl casting a pellet for a deeper understanding of what this strange object is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUU895J6Vu0
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