Owl Pellets

What's For Dinner? 

How Does Energy Flow?

I wrote a grant that was funded by Donors Choose for owl pellets last September.  It was the perfect addition to my unit on Food Chains & Webs.  It was my first experience doing this activity and it was a huge success.  We spent three days dissecting, sorting, identifying, graphing and diagraming.  

I put the students in groups of 2.  The students worked together and were so engaged in the activity. We found mostly mice and a few shrews and moles.  Some pellets contained more than one skull.  Make sure you stock up on gloves, sanitizer and wipes.

We sorted the bones and created a class graph on the types we found.

One patient student tried to create a skeleton...she wants to be a paleontologist or archeologist.

  I think she is on the right track!!!

My students enjoyed this video...

warning the song will get stuck in your head!!!

Here is the company that I used, there are many places to order them:

All About Owl Pellets- fact sheet on Carolina.com

Pellets -  ordering info on Carolina.com

I have a subscription to Superteacher and I used their sheets for the lesson.

Here is a free resource that I used for owl adaptations.
 They also have info on Owl Pellets and Food Chains.
Barn Owl Trust