Hands-On Activities Create Unique Learning Opportunities

Creating a productive learning environment in a classroom can be a challenge. With growing student numbers, tighter budgets and strict curriculum requirements, it can be difficult to find room for creativity. Hands-on activities serve as important opportunities for students to explore, discover and reinforce new material learned in the classroom. Dissection is one of the many lab activities with tactile components that help students recreate the steps of scientists and forge their own learning path. Instead of filling in blank spaces on worksheets or reading chapters in a textbook, dissecting forces students to utilize critical thinking, exercising their brain in new and different ways to learn more effectively. An owl pellet dissection lab is a wonderful opportunity for learners of all ages to discover nature like professional biologists, gaining valuable knowledge in the life cycle, animal habitats, and the scientific process.

Bring the Forest to School

Especially for schools located near wooded areas, owl pellet dissection labs help tie in real world examples to classroom lessons. Owl pellets for sale are collected from the wild, then sterilized to be safe for educational use. Because owls lack teeth to chew their prey, samples contain the bones and fur of small animals that include gophers, moles, rabbits, rats and squirrels. By discovering the bones and fur contained within the pellets, young learners can make inferences about these nocturnal birds’ role as predators. Genesis, Inc. provides high-quality pellets to classrooms across the country, making hands-on learning accessible to more students.

Applications for Every Age

For home schools, public or private institutions, specially prepared pellets have many practical applications for life science lessons. Whether students are learning about the life cycle, habitats or the scientific method, pellet dissection labs are a wonderful way to encourage exploration and open new avenues for learning. Owl pellets for sale can be purchased as part of a lab kit that includes tools and teaching materials for students of all levels. Instruction manuals guide lab participants through bone identification, dissecting processes and experimental procedures. Additional worksheets are available to supplement observations made during the dissection and reinforce newly learned material. These kits are easy to use and accessible to early learners and advanced students alike.

Making InferencesUnderstanding the life cycle and the process of scientific discovery are important lessons for any classroom. Instead of showing a chart of how animals interact in the food chain or explaining their habitat, students can dissect an owl pellet and make their own inferences. This process requires critical thinking and mental processes much more advanced than filling in the blanks on a worksheet or reciting information learned by rote memorization. Because of the way owl pellet kits are designed, kids can discover the remains of a variety of small animals, gaining insight to where these nocturnal birds might live and the type of prey that are susceptible to. The lab can also help open questions regarding predatory birds, nocturnal adaptations and regional variances in species.

Instructors who choose to take advantage of owl pellets for sale provide unique learning opportunities for their classrooms. Whether lab participants consist of a small group of homeschoolers, or a large room full of public schoolchildren, these small castings have a lot to teach young learners. From designing experiments, to making hypothesis, to safe practices in the lab, teachers can find different applications for students of all age ranges and ability levels. Safe and easy to use, these kits are an inexpensive way to encourage exploration, inference and discovery.

Weston Barnes is a write and an avid reader. When he's not writing about business, marketing, health, pets, or relationships, he's immersed in his latest book.