Owl Pellet dissections can be a fun science activity for people of many ages. We provide these generalizations as guidelines about what children at different ages might do while exploring Owl Pellet at the Discovery Center’s Experiment Station, in the kitchen at home, or at school. Listed below are science and technology process skills that children may be practicing during their explorations. Please remember: each child develops at a different rate, so some children in each age group may be able to do some of the things described in the age group before or after their own.
Infants should be closely watched by a grownup while doing this activity, especially if they are still in the stage of oral exploration. Although infants may not be able to participate in the dissection per se, they may enjoy watching older children dissect owl pellets.
Infants may also enjoy handling the child-safe tools (tweezers or magnifying lenses), or looking at the bones that older children find in their pellets.