Owls Visit Wellington Elementary School
Written by Mary Britton-Simmons
While rain fell outside, owls were kept warm and dry inside PACE (Parents Active in Cooperative Education) second and fifth grades at Wellington Elementary in the Northshore School District. For thousands of years, people have been fascinated with owls and attributed various symbols to them: wisdom, dread, knowledge, spirit world, and even death. In fact, where I lived in Peto, Yucatan, seeing an owl meant that someone in our small Mexican village was going to die.
Equally fascinated by owls were students in both grades at Wellington. They marveled at their extraordinary hunting behavior due to keen eyesight and remarkable hearing. They ran careful hands over the soft wing and tail feathers of the Snowy Owl, examined a Great Horned Owl egg and skull, and ended the session by listening to and then imitating owl calls. One student even raised his hand and asked me, “Who cooks for you?” A clever ending to a fun and information-packed lesson!
And finally, they became citizen scientists by examining pellets and attaching their discoveries of skulls and other bones to a chart. Excited shouts rang out: “I found a feather.” “Look at the skull hidden in my pellet.” “My parents will really like all the bones glued to my chart.”
Our last message to the students was the importance of keeping our earth safe for owls as their numbers are decreasing. Through our programs, we always hope to inspire students to be stewards of the environment and to consider science as a career. We plant seeds (or in this case, bones) and hope they sprout!
