And really, what's not to love? It's pretty cool, unless...
... unless you're a small-ish creature who lives in the vicinity of a hungry owl. Like a duckling living near a Great Horned Owl nest in Yosemite, for example.
The Inoculation Project: Math & Science in Red State Schools
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Solid science education is the best inoculation against ignorance. The Inoculation Project is a group of Kossacks who gather weekly to try to combat the anti-science push in conservative America, by providing direct funding to science and math projects in red state classrooms. Our conduit is DonorsChoose.org, a ten-year-old organization rated highly by both Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau. DonorsChoose.org allows you to make direct contributions to specific, vetted projects in public-school classrooms, resulting in tremendous and immediate impacts from small dollar donations.
Each Sunday, we focus on funding a single small-dollar project in a traditionally red state classroom, preferably in a high-poverty district. We're delighted to join Dawn Chorus today and lend our support to an owl-pellet project. Many thanks to lineatus for inviting us!
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Now the thing about owls is: if it's meat and they can fit it in their mouth they'll eat it. Rats, mice, squirrels... sure. Voles, moles, profiteroles (well maybe not the last). Birds small, medium and large. (Even a peregrine can be nailed when it's asleep.) Herps? Big bugs? You betcha. Great Horned Owls will even take skunks.
Just sneaking a peek to see if you look tasty...
Larger prey gets torn up and eaten (or fed to the youngsters), but smaller prey is swallowed whole - bones, fur, feathers and all. But owls aren't nearly so good at digesting prey as they are at catching it. They could let the undigestible bits work their way through the digestive system, but that presents a few problems. First, some of those larger bones could get lodged into an intestine awkwardly and cause a blockage. Some of them have sharp ends from being crunched on, so could potentially cause a puncture.
Even if the bones can pass through as safely as the fur and feathers and scales, all of that is just extra weight that the bird has to carry around while it's flying. Think of backpackers obsessively focussing on reducing the weight of their gear. Why carry one ounce more than you need to? When you think of most wild animals' margin for survival, it makes a lot of sense to save energy by not hauling indigestibles around. And so, a little while after the mousie-meal goes down, up comes a pellet of the yucky bits.
As I said, owls don't have very strong digestive systems. Other predators also cough up pellets, but they are often smaller, with fewer bones. Owl pellets frequently contain more than one creature's worth of bones, especially if the prey in the area is smaller (mice vs. rats or squirrels).
So this is where the kids come in: By taking apart pellets in their science classes, they can learn a few different lessons about how ecosystems function, and the role played by owls and other predators. They learn a bit about owl biology and bird biology, and biology in general. They can try to re-assemble the prey to figure out the species, which can teach about habitat and who lives where. They can count jaws or pelvises to see how many were eaten, and see how effective owls are for pest control - they provide value beyond just being totally cool. (They might also learn about the dangers of secondary poisoning from rodenticides, something that kills all sorts of predators.)
One good thing about owl pellet "dissection" is that it can be done with no harm to the owls. (The prey critters didn't fare so well, of course, but their fate was already sealed when the owl showed up.) If you find a regular owl roost site, you'll find plenty of pellets on the ground, and it won't bother the owls if they go away. So the teacher can just go grab a bunch, right? Well, here's an example of the ground underneath an owl roost:
At the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco... the fine art of hurling, apparently.
The grey chunks are owl pellets (darker ones are fresher, lighter are older and more dried out) and the white splatters ... came out of the other end of the owl. So, do you really think a teacher in our litigation-happy time is going to want to grab that stuff randomly and hand it to her kids? Yeah, me neither. So pellet kits are a good alternative. Someone gathers pellets, sterilizes them, packs them up with some educational materials and sends them to classes.
All of that yuckiness came from this lovely creature? Go figure...
So here's your chance to take a few kids under your wing, so to speak. We know that science is under attack in many school districts around the country because those pesky "facts" conflict with opinions. Even places that think science classes should teach, well, you know, science find themselves underfunded. And the underfunding is usually worst for the kids who need the most. The Inoculation Project is not about telling kids that they should grow up to be scientists (but ya never know). Rather, it's about firing up their interest and giving them the foundations to understand the world in a scientific, fact-based way.
This Week's Main Project:
Project: Is That A Rat Skull In That Owl Pellet?
Resources Needed: 65 sterilized owl pellets
School Poverty Level: High
Location: W Herbert Chapman Elem School, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Total Cost: $304.08
Still Needed: $104.08 COMPLETED! See bonus #1 below!
Expires: Oct 23, 2011
Teacher's Comments from Mrs. W:
My Students: What better way to show the science concept of predator and prey than to have children dissect an owl pellet that contains the skulls and bones of a pocket gopher, rat, vole, mouse, or shrew.
I teach fourth grade in a school where over 90% of the children are on free or reduced lunch. Many of our children come from single parent homes and a growing number of children are homeless. Our school is considered disadvantaged but I want my students to feel advantaged in having these materials to learn with.
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Here's Mrs. W's thank you note to us:
I cannot thank you enough for your generous donations that will enable my children to experience science first hand. I have been able to have owl pellets or the past 5 years due to Donors Choose and donors like you. I now have the brothers and sisters of those previous children. They ask at the very beginning of the year "Are we doing owl pellets too?" I am so excited that I can tell them "YES".
I have seen the most reluctant children open their eyes and their minds to the wonders of nature and when that happens I have them hooked and they never look back.
Again, I cannot thank you enough for your generous donation.
With gratitude,
Mrs. W.
See the rest of Mrs. W's statement and DONATE HERE.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
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Burrowing Owl, aka Athene cunicularia, named for the Greek goddess of Wisdom. Ergo, studying owls make kids smarter.
BONUS Project #1: When the main project is finished
Project: Owls Do What?
Resources Needed: 30 sterilized owl pellets
School Poverty Level: Moderate
Location: North Elementary School, Morgantown, West Virginia
Total Cost: $161.29
Still Needed: $99.29 COMPLETED! See bonus #2 below!
Expires: Jan 06, 2012
Teacher's Comments from Mrs. P:
My Students: "Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand." What better way to discover about the eating habits of birds than by digging through their puke!!
I teach in a collaborative 4th grade classroom with 28 wonderful students and a special education teacher. In addition to enhancing writing skills, this year our focus is on developing inquiry skills and providing students the skills to take responsibility for their own learning. <snip> One third of the students in my classroom have learning disabilities and specifically struggle in the area of reading and writing. Students will participate in Internet and library research to develop an expository essay on owls. They will then be able to physically dissect an owl pellet to see and touch some of the "facts" they discovered during research. Inquiry through hands on discovery allows all students to be successful and active participants our classroom.
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Here's a preliminary thank you from Mrs. P (she hasn't seen she's fully funded yet):
Thank you SO very much!! I am super excited to get started. This is one of my favorite activities of the year!! :-)
See the rest of Mrs. P's statement and DONATE HERE.
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BONUS Project #2: When bonus project #1 is finished
Project: Support My Budding Scientists!
Resources Needed: big screen microscope, slides, owl pellets, a balance, a model of a volcano, and activity tubs filled with manipulatives
School Poverty Level: High
Location: Celia Clinton Elementary School, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Total Cost: $493.29
Still Needed: $246.65 $191.65
Expires: Dec 20, 2011
Teacher's Comments from Ms. F:
My Students: Third graders love science. They love to ask questions about the world and then conduct experiments or research the answer to that question. Unfortunately, science resources are typically expensive, so my students rarely have the chance to engage in the scientific inquiry they love.
I am a member of the Teach for America Charter Corps in Oklahoma. I teach third grade at a high poverty school where 100% of the students receive free breakfast and lunch. Seventy percent of my students are Hispanic, most of whom are English language learners. My students love to learn, and they are excited about the progress they will make this year towards the ambitious goals we set together at the beginning of the year.
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Here's a preliminary note from Ms. F (you can see that RL Miller mentioned the cookies!):
Thank you very much for your donations! I love the idea of owl pellet cookies. Our school year is off to a great start, and my students have enjoyed what we have done so far in science. We appreciate your support of our classroom!
See the rest of Ms. F's statement and DONATE HERE.
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Adult owl mentors two fledglings, with extended lessons on triangulating sound sources to find mousies and flight trajectories for prey interception.
I haven't been able to add photos to my tip jar when I post from my phone, so I'm putting in a gratuitous Long-eared Owl here at the end. Because I can.