St. Joseph School

   Fourth graders in science teacher Nicole Gooch's class recently learned that when owls eat small rodents, birds, and bugs, which are part of their nightly diet, their stomachs cannot digest the fur, bones, teeth, feathers, or insect shells from that food. This castoff material is formed into pellets inside an owl which it spits up. The students recently dissected a number of such pellets and found out owls have a special organ called a gizzard that allows them to eat their prey whole.  
  "Owls can eat four to five small animals a night," Ms. Gooch said. "The pellets can show many animals they've eaten." Multiple skulls and bones are often found in them, and Ms. Gooch had the children create charts to classify their bones.  Lucia Molina is seen here.