Whats the best way to clean bones for a classroom?
A. There probably is no best way, but there are clearly some methods that you don’t want to do. Most classroom projects I’ve worked on have done their bone cleaning by boiling the skeletons outside over an electric hotplate or, for big skeletons, over a propane burner. This is often a weekend project or, for small skeletons it can happen over a long day. It often takes eight hours of boiling for many skeletons. Small or young animals can take a lot less time. A new method that is gaining favor for classrooms is to sandwich the skinned and gutted animal between fresh horse manure in a plastic tote (with a snap-on lid) for four to six months. When done, retrieving the bones is like archaeology. You get to excavate a cleaned skeleton from what looks and smells like mulched grass clippings. The carcass in the tote can stay in the classroom without offensive smells. The lid probably needs to be popped open every week for fresh oxygen. This is the “Horse Poop Processing Method.
A. There probably is no best way, but there are clearly some methods that you don’t want to do. Most classroom projects I’ve worked on have done their bone cleaning by boiling the skeletons outside over an electric hotplate or, for big skeletons, over a propane burner. This is often a weekend project or, for small skeletons it can happen over a long day. It often takes eight hours of boiling for many skeletons. Small or young animals can take a lot less time. A new method that is gaining favor for classrooms is to sandwich the skinned and gutted animal between fresh horse manure in a plastic tote (with a snap-on lid) for four to six months. When done, retrieving the bones is like archaeology. You get to excavate a cleaned skeleton from what looks and smells like mulched grass clippings. The carcass in the tote can stay in the classroom without offensive smells. The lid probably needs to be popped open every week for fresh oxygen.
