Bone Talk

One of my early childhood students found an object on walk with his class on a path through the woods near our school.  He brought it to me wondering, “Is this a stone or is it a bone?” 

We looked at it together.  From the shape and heft, it was certainly a bone.  “Where did you find it,” I asked, and he told me about a spot on the trail, “near some deer tracks.” 

“Which do you think it is,” I asked him, “bone or stone?”  “I think it’s a bone,” he said after a few second hopefully.  “I think so too.  Feel the weight.  It’s too light for a stone of the same size. Also, look at those little holes all over it.  Bone is like that.  What kind of bone do you think it is?  Where in an animal’s body do you think this came from?” I queried.

He looked puzzled.  “Is it a bone from a skull?”  He looked doubtful.  The bone was a short, thick oval, with some oddly shaped projections.  “Is it from a leg?  Or a foot?” I continued. 

He clearly didn’t think so, but was quiet for a while.  “What about from a bone from the back, from a spinal column?”  He was still quiet.  “What if this bone had lots of others like it piled on top of it?”  “Yes,” he said eagerly, ‘it could be a backbone.”  “Yes, and then nerves would run down this hole in the center and the shape would let the animal bend in many ways,” I offered.

 “What kind of animal?” he asked.  “What do you think?” I asked.  Quiet again.  Both of us.  I waited.  After the right amount of time, I asked, “Big animal or small animal?”

“Big animal,” he enthused right away.  “What kind of big animals live in those woods?” I went on.  “Deer!  Do you think it’s a deer?” he asked eagerly.  “Yes, I do” I said.  “Let’s look at it with the magnifier.”

“How old is it?  Did the deer just go down there and die?” he wondered.  We looked at the discolored bone, dirty beige with some white patches.  “Old,” he guessed.  “I think so too,” I agreed. 

The white patches puzzled me until I looked closely with the magnifier, seeing many fine, evenly spaced vertical scratches in the recessed white patches.   “Why is some of the bone brownish and some white?” I asked.  Quiet. “Maybe some of the bone was in the dirt and some was sticking out and it got rubbed away?” he offered.  “Maybe, but look at where the patches are.  How would you place the bone in the dirt so only those special places stuck out?” I asked.  Quiet.  We could both see no way to place the bone in that way in the dirt.  I pointed out the scratches and we co-evolved the idea of a small scavenger gnawing on the deer bones lying on the trail.

“Wow!” he exclaimed.  Now we had a fuller story line from a bit of bone lying alongside a woodland trail.  “That’s an interesting bone,” I said.  “I think you should share this with the class.  And show it to your parents tonight.”  It would be a good conversation at home.  I love teaching science.