Grade 3 scientists have been investigating the human body.  Bones give our bodies form and protection.  We have used different kinds of models to study our bones—our own bodies, paper drawings, plastic models and now, look—real bones!  These bones are what an owl had for dinner—in an owl pellet.  Owls eat their food whole and then spit up the bones and fur.  Scientists can collect these owl pellets and study the bones inside—that’s what we did in lab.  The pellets are heated to make them safe from bacteria and ready for investigations.  Our pellets came from California and the Pacific Northwest but we have owls in Hawai’i.  The pueo is the Hawaiian short-eared owl, we also have barn owls here.  Some families have the owl as their amakua.  Owls have many stories and meanings for all kinds of people around the world.  What else would you like to know about owls?

For our lab investigation, we collected pieces of the different bones we found and sorted them out to find out more about the animals that were on the owl’s dinner menu.  Some of those bones really looked like bones we have!  Did you know you have bones that are similar to a mouse, rat or vole?   Which bones are interesting to you?  You have over 200 to choose from!

Our next adventure has started at our home science labs.  We are taking a chicken bone and putting it in vinegar.  I wonder if people chose different bones?  This is a chemistry adventure because vinegar is a kind of acid.  It takes a week to 10 days.  I wonder what people are finding out as they do this experiment at home?  We will share our results but there is this holiday coming up that has great bones!  Will you have this big bird skeleton at your house to study too?