Greetings all!
I have been very quiet on the forum in the last while, so to remedy that I thought Id share what I have been keeping myself busy with recently... (last year and a half)
I changed from being a lab jockey (mycologist at a forestry focused research institute) to being a biology teacher, and Im LOVING IT! But Im starting from scratch, I have the teachers diploma, but no resources to aid my teaching... This little detour into the insane started when I did a teaching practical at a school for partially sighted and blind learners, it is a little difficult to explain some concepts to kids who cant see the pictures... so to better teach dentition and the differences between carnivores and herbivores I bought sheep offal and cleaned the skull to give tot he kids to handle...
on hearing this my intrepid mom contacted some local farmers asking them to keep an eye out for skulls or remains of animals on their farm lands and plots, following this, a farmer turned up a black backed jackal carcass that had been shot by his neighbor, a not-so-fresh carcass, about a week dead, juicy, oozy and stinking to high heaven! let the games begin!
Step one - 'compost' jackal in horse manure and and 'semels' for 4 months, this is the slightly pastey results...
My mom and I in the most gruesome scavenger hunt ever... it didnt smell so good...