The Scientific Method

Hopefully you have already heard about the owl pellets that students dissected last Friday. We began our lesson my talking about the steps scientists take when they are trying to learn more about something. After reading a few books about owls, I showed them an owl pellet but did not tell them what it was. I told them that it was their job, as scientists, to ask questions about it and hypothesize what it could be. Some students predicted that the object was an owl pellet. Others said it was fur, and some thought it was a mouse. The next day, I gave one pellet to each small group of students and let them explore. We talked about how they would be finding bones, and I explained the names of the major bones and where they are in our bodies. As they found the bones, they highlighted them on a chart. After about 45 minutes of fully engaged exploration, we had quite a mess to clean up! Yesterday, we worked on documenting what we found and determining if our predictions were correct. We will be having Four Winds next Wednesday and the lesson will be centered around owls and pellets as well, which will give students a greater understanding of owls and another opportunity to explore a pellet!