Buffalo Guts

I had an idea, a year ago, for a way to present the Native American use of all parts of the buffalo.  Before, I would show students a picture of the buffalo (American Bison) with all of its parts and their uses labeled around the picture.  Then they would transfer that information onto a graphic organizer.  Boring?  Uh huh.  More than that though, this assignment seemed more like busy work.  It wasn't eliciting the information or skills I really wanted.

So I had this idea to kick it up a notch.  What if students could actually reach into a buffalo's gut and take something out?  I could fill a paper buffalo with everyday items.  After students retrieved the items, they could describe their items and list creative uses for the items.  Would a particular item be used for defense?  Survival? Food?  Entertainment?  Decoration?  Be specific.

But reaching into a paper buffalo for a piece of plastic doesn't cut it.  I needed something else to make this more experiential and less...lame.  When I started cutting the paper for this activity (I was going through with it since it was still better than the boring paper work.), I wondered if I could enhance things with some of our science materials.  That's when I remembered these super-absorbant jelly marbles (See video, right.).  I secretly placed a teaspoon of the "marbles" in each of 13 plastic cups and filled the cups with water.  By the next morning, the crystals had grown to the point that they filled the cups, with very little water left over.

Check Steve Spangler's site for more Science goodies.

These would give me just enough of a gross factor without going overboard.  All that was left was to bury the items in the squishy orbs, put a cow skull at one end of my buffalo hide, and wait for the kids to arrive.

Early in our school day, we discovered that it was Manuel Lisa's birthday.  Manuel Lisa was a Missouri fur trapper who was responsible for much of the rise in fur trading as a business.  We had a nice discussion about Mr. Lisa and his chosen career path, researching about his life and working some math problems along the way.

But the bison-in-the-room was still there - literally in the room.

So I introduced our Native American studies with the idea that the Indians used every part of the animal - not just the pelt.  We copied no lists.

Now to introduce the buffalo:  I explained the activity, and students proceeded to "disembowel" this animal. They blindly put their hands into the buffalo (jelly crystals) and found items.

With Principal Bozarth looking on, Hoggatteers paired up to write descriptive paragraphs and make lists of uses for the item.

To round things out before lunch (Yes, we gutted a buffalo before lunch!), I had the class sign in to the Socrative app on their iPads and take a survey:

• Was this topic interesting?
• Was this activity fun?
• Did your partner contribute his/her best effort to the activity?
• Did you contribute your best effort to this activity?
• Did you have enough time to complete the task?
• Was there too much time provided?
• What suggestions might you have to make this activity even better for next year's class?

Of course, in the end, we all needed to handle the jelly marbles once again...after watching Steve Spangler's explanatory video above.