Primary
Life Science
Testing Bone Strength
How well do hollow bones support a bird’s muscles?
Materials:
printer paper
tape - masking
paper plates-heavy weight best
weights- books, bags of sand, etc.
balance
This is a very simple but effective way to illustrate the strength of a bird’s hollow bones.
Procedure:
1. Roll a piece of printer paper into a tube and tape the edges. Make 2 more tubes.
2. Stand the tubes up so that they will support a paper plate. Attach the tubes to the plate with
the tape.
3. Predict how much weight the plate can hold.______________________________
4. Place weights on top of the plate—keep them evenly spaced to keep plate balanced.
5. Keep adding weights until the plate collapses. Find the mass of the weights.
6. How did the actual weights compare with your prediction?________________
(Students will have a grand time discovering the ability to support weights!)
A good explanation of how bird bones are quite strong in spite of being mostly hollow:
https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/bird-bones-may-be-hollow-they-are-also-heavy-says-umassamherst-biologist