Can Owls and Bats Smile

For each image, students do two columns:

Owls

Bats

Kit needed

Run with a class

Activity: Face vs Function Lab

Show students 6, 8 photos:

owls with different head angles / feather positions
bats with open mouths, closed mouths, yawns, and feeding shots

For each image, students do two columns:

What it looks like (human interpretation): “smiling,” “angry,” “surprised”
What it might be (biology interpretation): calling, warning, thermoregulating, listening, posture change

Finish with a CER:

Claim: “Owls/bats don’t ‘smile’ like humans.”
Evidence: they communicate mainly through posture/sound/touch
Reasoning: facial muscles and signaling systems differ
Limitation: “We can’t directly measure emotion from a photo alone.”

This turns a funny question into real science: observation vs inference.

Where it comes from

Sometimes it looks like an owl is grinning and a bat is smirking. The honest truth is simpler and way more interesting: they’re not performing emotion for us, they’re wearing anatomy.

If you’ve ever seen an owl that looks permanently unimpressed (or permanently delighted), or a bat that looks like it’s mid-laugh, you’re not alone. Our brains are built to read faces. We can’t help it.

But animals don’t all “speak face” the way humans do.

Read the blog post ↗ Can Owls and Bats Smile · 2026-04-17

Workspace

Run it with your class

Set up the class, count what needs counting, write down what happened, then save it and take it with you. Everything here stays in this browser until you download it.