Owl Pellet Dissection | Full Rodent Skeleton скачать в хорошем качестве

Owl Pellet Dissection | Full Rodent Skeleton

If you've never done an owl pellet dissection before, fair warning, it can be hard to stomach this activity. We took this project to the next level by assembling a complete rodent skeleton out of the remains we found in the owl pellet. While that wasn't our initial intentions, I'm really glad we did so, and I found it to be the most educational part of this project. We used an Owl Pellet Field Biology Kit from Rainbow Resource (links to all the materials we used on the blog post): Check out the blog post that accompanies this video: https://www.pepperandpine.com/owl-uni... I highly recommend this one because the owl pellets were big and we found a lot of bones in them. We were also sent some owl pellets from a friend's property and that gave us a chance to observe the differences between them. The smaller owl pellets contained fewer bones and needed to be prepared for safe dissection. To safely dissect owl pellets you find in the wild, wrap them in aluminum foil and bake them for 45 minutes at 350 degrees fahrenheit. This ensures that the bacteria and germs are killed. This is especially necessary if you are working in a classroom or with children. The downside to doing this (I believe) is that the owl pellets harden and became too difficult to dissect without soaking. The small owl pellets from the wild needed at least 15 minutes to soak in very hot water. This helped open up the owl pellets and made it easier to find the bones. However, there may be a bit of an odor when you soak your owl pellets. Also, you may find the wet fur and bones less pleasant than the dry ones. The texture does change when it's all wet and if you are easily grossed out by these kinds of things, soaking the owl pellet will just make it worse for you! Overall, we really enjoyed the process, and the owl pellet kit was a hit! The kit we bought contained three owl pellets, a magnifying glass, a pair of tweezers and most importantly, a field guide. The field guide was exceedingly helpful in helping us identify the bones and ultimately the type of animal the owl ate. I think this kit is the perfect hands-on project to any owl or bird unit. We mounted our skeleton on 90 lb. watercolor paper by Fabriano using Tombow mono adhesive. The adhesive we used is strong and dries clear. It also takes a long time to dry making it ideal for projects you may have to move things around for. I framed it in a shadow frame box I picked up after Easter at PartyCity for only 50 cents. They were heavily discounted because the frame had an Easter image. I popped out the backing using an X-acto knife (the kids were not around and would not be allowed to do this part of the project) to cut along the back and separate the glue. I mounted the finished project using a glue stick. I'm not sure if the glue was acid-free, but I recommend that you check before using on a project like this. I used Gorilla Wood Glue to glue the frame onto the backing. I finished off the frame with a metal label plate from my scrapbooking stash. I'm very pleased with how this activity and project turned out. It took the better part of one afternoon to do the initial dissection and the better part of a second day to finish the project and hang it in our school room. I kept the leftover undissected small owl pellets in the box along with the other materials for us to do in the future. Now that they are baked, I do think they'll last a while. We did pull out a few things from our own materials for this project: extra tweezers and magnifying glasses and boxes as well as petri dishes and paper plates for dissection. The kit recommends placing a piece of white paper under the dissecting owl pellet, but if you soak the pellet, I recommend something heavier. I did this project with my 8-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son as part of a homeschool science unit study on Owls. Check out our complete Owl unit study with videos on how we put this unit together, the resources we used and the projects we did:    • Homeschool Haul   This video is NOT sponsored. Find me here:   / pepperandpine     / pepperandpine     / pepperandpine   https://www.pepperandpine.com