So while watching an actual dead raccoon over days, weeks or months would give us the BEST evidence to know what causes it to change over time, the classes agreed that that would be impossible for safety reasons.
So over the long weekend, Mrs. Brinza found a pretty sweet timelapsed video showing a fairly similar organism to a raccoon--a badger. We put on our professional science hats and realized that the process of what would happen to the badger may be challenging for some to watch, but we recognized it is a natural process that we should figure out. Here's the video!
So over the long weekend, Mrs. Brinza found a pretty sweet timelapsed video showing a fairly similar organism to a raccoon--a badger. We put on our professional science hats and realized that the process of what would happen to the badger may be challenging for some to watch, but we recognized it is a natural process that we should figure out. Here's the video!
Dead badger picked clean
A time-lapse video of a roadkill badger being recycled. Different speeds. One or two gaps. Natural light. (Warning: British law says you shouldn't remove dead badgers from roads. If you do and you are found in possession of the badger's corpse, you might be prosecuted for badger-baiting. Daft? Yes.
Students each made a notice/wonder chart from the video, and had a chance to even look at screenshots of four specific days during the 9 day video span. Here are those screenshots:
There was certainly a buzz in the classroom as students compared their ideas with what was causing the badger to change. Groups identified how their explanations were similar and different. We've got lots of uncertainty, along with some things we feel fairly confident about! Tomorrow we'll be discussing our explanations, along with setting up our Driving Question Board for the unit.
We shared out our findings to come up with these two lists of possible causes for the changes in the badger: