Have you ever seen a flicker or woodpecker pounding away at bark, or annoyingly on a tin roof, and wondered how in the world they can do that without bashing in their brains? After all, the force of that is measured at over 1,000x the force of gravity! The answer is pretty complex, but you can break it down into some simple parts:
In my previous post about animal skulls I provided you with some basic animal skull identification resources, but in this post I want to help you begin to narrow down what type of animal skull you might have found. The easiest way to start is by looking at the teeth of of the skull. If the teeth are present, this is easiest, though you can sometimes muddle through by looking at the skull if only the tooth sockets remain. It's also helpful if you have both jaws available,(upper and lower mandibles) though it's not required. Often one or the other is enough to help you.
After conducting informal science education programs (outside of the classroom) for over thirteen years I have found that the number of home school groups attending my programs has increased exponentially. With an increase in this audience I've found myself in conversation with other educators trying to forge a way to best meet the needs of the varied ages, rates of learning, and abilities that present themselves with home schoolers. In this post I'll attempt to share a bit of what I've learned that in turn might help others.
