LESSON INFO

Author: Jason Carwin

Grade Level: Middle School or High School

Subject Area: Science Skills

Curriculum Standard: Utah Biology Core, Standard I, Objective 3

Materials Needed:

• Dissection kits

• Owl pellets

• A poster showing a key for different types of bones commonly found in owl pellets

• Handout

• Assessment worksheet

Time Needed: 45 minutes

Best season for this lesson: All-seasons

Background information: Before this lesson is taught students should have background information about food chains (where does this lesson fit in to curriculum, what does the teacher need to know to teach this lesson, what do students need to know before they can do this lesson)

THE LESSON

Engage: Show a video or picture of a raptor eating prey such as the one in the link below. This video shows a barn owl swallowing its prey whole:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVSXQKmL6ZM

Ask the students what they notice about the way that the owl eats its food.  Ask the students if owls can digest all the parts of a rodent.  If they can't, ask what happens to the rodent parts that the owl can't digest?

Explore: Explain that raptors form and cough up pellets of fur, bones and other indigestible materials.  By dissecting these pellets we can see what the owl that made the pellet had been eating.  Divide the students into dissection teams of two or three students and provide each group with a dissection kit, a handout and an owl pellet.  Allow the students to explore their pellets with a goal of determining what the owl has been eating and what this can teach us about the food chain in the ecosystem the owl is a part of.

Explain: (Confirmation of results of student research) Have student groups share their findings and their food chains with another group.  Allow students enough time for both groups to present their findings, ideas, results, ands conclusions.

Elaborate: Have students research how raptors such as owls can be used as bio-indicators.  What is a bio-indicator?  What do they think about the health of the ecosystem that their owl is a part of?

Evaluate/Assessment: Use the assessment worksheet adapted from biologycorner.com as an assessment tool for the dissection.