Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Maceration Update!

OK, while we are using the phrase, "How scientific!" instead of saying, "Gross!" I must admit that this week's experiment with macerating our dog skull almost put me over the edge. I knew the water would begin to smell, but maybe leaving it over the holiday weekend was just a bit TOO long. 

Luckily nobody threw up, and we have all lived to see another day. We were also hoping that by moving the bones kids won't realize there are still out there, and will stop peaking at them and risking contracting zootonic diseases...

Here are the photos by Geraldinee of what we have done with our skull now. As you can see, it is now awaiting the local insect population to come on out and nibble away the remaining flesh for us - after all it is now nice and juicy. When I left school tonight at about 4:30pm, there were some small red ants scurrying along the fence wire, and some large red ants coming and going just beyond the fence. I am sure they could smell our bones, but just hadn't found them yet. A couple of flies were buzzing about and sitting on the skull, but they don't help by eating it.

















Hopefully tomorrow morning we will see some actual flesh-eating insect action...

6 comments:

  1. I thought that dog bone was ummmmmm... very scientific I should say. But I can't belive you touched it but as long as you washed your hands hahahah. But I think it was kinda cool, yet very very very very very very very very very GROOSE!!!!! I love being in your class has been fun for these last 36 days has been fun I get to know alot of people that were not in my class from last year. I LOVE YOU

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    1. Liz you sound so SCIENTIFIC when you wrote that comment.I have had a fun 39 now days in MRS.HARVEY'S class.And there is only 5 people that was in my class from last year so DON'T BE SAD.LOVE JALECIA

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  2. I wonder if ants are going to eat the fleash on the skull.The skull is very scientific

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  3. I showed it to my cousin and first he was speechless then he said it was very awesome and he would like to try to clean out a skull.!!!

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  4. Wow Mrs.Harvey your super cool experiment looks cool and gross at the same time it looks like your students had alot of fun making a experiment.

    I also have to ask what happened next after you had put the water on the dog bones i want to know what happen next. And how did you get the dog bone i hope you diddnt just umm you know kill it to just get the bones for the experiment.

    From Jason.H

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  5. Don't worry, Jason, I didn't kill the dog! If you look under the August posts, in Forensics in My Backyard, you'll learn where I found the skeleton, and what we figured out had happened to the dog.
    Then to see what happened next, check out the label "Class Investigators" Three of the girls investigated and reported on what happened to our skeleton...it was quite a mystery for us all for a while!
    Intriguing...

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