That Owl Ate What???

School:: Golden Terrace Elementary
Subject:: Science
Teacher:: Mattea Marks
Students Impacted:: 175
Grade:: 4
Date:: July 8, 2016

Investor

Thank you to the following investor for funding this grant.

Suncoast Credit Union - $129.00

Impact to My Classroom

# of Students Impacted: 150

All of our 4th graders were able to dissect an owl pellet. They have a benchmark in which they learn about food chains and food webs. This allowed them to investigate what an owl eats first hand! They were able to use posters with pictures of different animal bones and critical thinking skills to try to figure out what animals the mystery bones that they found belong to. Then they used math skills to graph how many of each animal the class found to see if they could figure out what animal the owls liked eating the best. You can see in the pictures how engaged they are in learning. Overall this was an great and exciting way to learn about food chains and the student enjoyed it and learned a ton!

grant photo

Original Grant Overview

Goal

To engage students in learning about food chains and food webs by letting them dissect owl pellets.

What will be done with my students

Students will do a three day unit on food chains and food webs to culminate by dissecting "mystery pellets." After students learn about food chains in the classroom, they will get to dissect the owl pellet with their lab group. Then they use a bone identification chart to identify what their owl ate. This unit will also incorporate math when the students graph how many of each prey animal they find and literacy with two books about owls that students will read and discuss.

Benefits to my students

This activity covers two of the 4th grade science benchmarks: 1. Explain that animals, including humans, cannot make their own food and that when animals eat plants or other animals, the energy stored in the food source is passed to them. 2. Trace the flow of energy from the Sun as it is transferred along the food chain through the producers to the consumers.

Students get the hands-on experience of dissecting the owl pellets and seeing what the owl ate instead of just reading about it. This is how science really comes to life for them!

Budget Narrative

60 owl pellets which would be enough for about 1 per group of 3 students.

Items

#	Item	Cost
1	Large Owl Pellets	$129.00
	Total:	$129.00

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