"What do owls eat?"
This past Thursday was my last SEP science lesson for this school year. Building from our digestion theme from the last visit, this lesson was all about owl pellets. Owls frequently swallow their prey whole. However, they cannot digest the prey's fur or bones, so they regurgitate the material.
Scientists often collect the owl pellets and study their contents to determine seasonal eating habits and estimate populations of various rodent species. Owl pellets are also a common first dissection for elementary school children, as the bones are well-preserved, it feels like a treasure hunt for the kids, and they can learn fantastic scientific method skills like asking questions (What do owls eat?), testing their hypotheses (performing the dissection), analyzing the results (What did we find in the owl pellets? How many of each rodent are there?) and drawing conclusions.
The children were incredibly excited to do the owl pellet dissection--constantly calling one of us over to show what they had found or to ponder what a particular bone was used for. It was a whirlwind end to the semester, but everyone (including the teachers) seemed to really enjoy it.
After both classes were finished, the teachers presented us each with a bouquet of flowers
Flowers!
and a packet of really cute thank-you letters.
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This student drew a picture of the preserved small intestine we brought.
Fun and cute excerpts from our thank-you letters:
1) Dear Mr. Louise (sic) and Ms. Christina...
2) I liked to touch the guts but the guts stinked (sic).
3) It was cool when you put germs on our hands.
4) I remember when you had five senses.
5) Thank you for visiting our class room and teaching us cool science stuff? (sic)
This was my third year in a row volunteering with SEP. I also think this was my favorite year. The teachers we partnered with were absolutely amazing! The students were always so well-prepared before we came in and always asked insightful questions. Their preparation and the students genuine enthusiasm made it really easy to get them thinking aloud and participating in the experiments.
As Henri Poincaré, the French mathematician wrote:
"The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because
he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful."
I hope Louise and I had a positive influence on the students and that some of them choose to stick with science. It's a field with many ups and downs, but it's also so full of wonder and awe.
