Gretchen Brinza
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REALLY Asking Questions about the Badger

5/7/2017

 
Fifth graders recognized that the badger's body was fairly similar to the raccoon, so we decided to screen shot the badger's body over the 9-day video to really see what was going on.  In a thoughtful discussion, here's what we figured out:

1.  The badger's body seemed to be visited by all kinds of organisms, some of which were fairly obvious--flies and crows.  Some students said they saw maggots (white bugs), but others think its sandy stuff.  We wonder if they're really maggots.  Some students said they're fly babies.  We'll have to look into that.
2.  The badger's body looked pretty much the same for the first few days, and then it began to look WAY different...the fur got changed tremendously, and the body itself started getting smaller and smaller.  Was something eating it?
3.  By the end of the nine days, all that was left was the skeleton and bones.  We wonder why these were the only things left.  

And then it got us really thinking.  If the fur and bones were left, why don't we see fur and bones of dead animals all the time?  Things have to be dying all the time, so where do they exactly go?

We need to figure out what we can do next, so we started thinking about other living things we could possibly investigate safely in the context of our classroom.  Someone suggested plants, since they were living.  Let's see where this takes us!
​

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    Wonderings...

    I just couldn't believe it when I saw that raccoon lying on the side of the road...

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