If you’re looking for creative halloween activities for high school science, you’re in for a treat (haha). From sculpting muscle groups on miniature skeletons to investigating forensic science with mock crime scenes, these activities not only make learning fun but also deepen your students’ understanding of human anatomy. Here are six halloween activities for high school that will have your students excited, engaged, and eager to learn!
When I see the skeletons come out for halloween each year, all I can think about is teaching! These six halloween activities for high school science are a great way to bring some spooky fun to learning the bones, joints, forensic anthropology, and even homologous structures!
Skeletal System Race
Grab a few larger sized skeletons and take them apart! Put the pile of bones in front of the classroom and your students into groups. Call out a bone and have one person from each group race to the pile and return with the bone. The group will need to confirm that they got the right bone, and then raise it in the air. First one up gets a point!
Since each skeleton has two (or more!) of most bones, you should only need two or three skeletons, depending on how many student groups you have. If you choose to call out ‘pelvis!’ be ready for a pile of students grabbing for one of the few pelvises (pelvi?). Set some rules at the start – running disqualifies the group, and the first one who touches the bone, gets the bone.
It also helps to contain the bones so they are not scattered and stepped on as kids search. A kiddy pool is a great container!
Model the Major Muscle Groups
This is one of my favorites! Give students little skeletons and a print out the major muscle groups. Have students use different colors of play dough to sculpt and model the muscle groups onto their skeleton! They can then label the muscle groups and take a photo. Great for later study! Check out this blog post to read more detail about this fun activity.
Forensic Science and Bone Analysis
Set up a mock crime scene where students use the plastic skeletons to analyze skeletal remains. Provide clues related to the age, sex, or height of the individual based on bone measurements and features.
You may have to add these features! I recommend looking at the pelvis first – does it look more male or female? Based on that decision, add some features on the skull to match. If you need to make a skull look more male or more female, consider using modeling clay to add features. Scuff up the area on the skull really well first so your clay sticks when dry. Air dry clay is lightweight and works well. If the clay pops off, use hot glue or superglue to stick it back on!
You can also add features like wounds, saw marks, and bone breaks. Let students identify if the break happened before death or during/after death based on how you made it look.
Draw or etch out (or fill in!) epiphyseal lines for students to analyze and determine age at death. Students can practice techniques like measuring femur or humerus length to determine height.
Take it to the next level by making up some missing person reports! Make five or six profiles with different ages, heights and sexes, only one matching your skeleton. Can students use the clues in the bones to figure out which missing person it is?
For this activity you may only need to purchase one or two skeletons. Set up stations with a few bones in each, and have students rotate through to get all the information they need.
Want a no-prep lesson that makes students into bone detectives?
Check out this full lesson for teaching Forensic Anthropology, complete with teaching slides, notes, review, and a fully digital crime to solve! Students study, manipulate and analyze bone images on interactive Google Slides to determine the age, sex and height of the skeleton. They then pour over a set of missing person reports to find the identity of the skeleton.
Adaptations Exploration
Why only use human skeletons in your classroom? A quick trip to Walmart or HomeDepot and you will find skeletons of bats, rats, cats and all kinds of other creatures. Use the skeletons to explore evolutionary adaptations by comparing human skeletons with those of other animals’ skeletons.
Challenge students to identify homologous structures, discussing how different skeletal structures have evolved to suit various environments and lifestyles. This activity can include researching how specific adaptations help animals survive and thrive in their habitats.
Just the Joints
Have students investigate different types of joints using the skeleton models. Provide a list of joint types (hinge, ball-and-socket, etc) and ask students to identify and demonstrate these joints on their skeletons. This activity can include discussions about how each joint type contributes to movement and stability, reinforcing their understanding of human anatomy and biomechanics.
What am I Missing?
Of course, we can use the plastic skeletons to identify and label different bones! Painters tape works great for making labels, just write on the tape and stick it to the bone!
It is also a great exercise (and humorous – pun intended!) to find the bones that are missing! Most decor skeletons are missing a few or more bones, or multiple bones are fused together into one lump (like the ‘foot bone’). Does the plastic skeleton have the right number of ribs? Vertebrae?
If each group has a different skeleton model, they could report out to the class how many and which bones on their skeleton are missing. Which skeleton model is the most accurate?
Related: Looking for more seasonal fun for your science classroom? Check out this idea for using pumpkins for project based learning!
Skeletons for your Halloween Activities for High School
September and October (often on sale in late October!) are the best months to find skeletons in local stores like Walmart, but you don’t have to wait! Amazon has skeletons year round. They only need to be purchased one time, all of these activities allow you to use the skeletons year after year.
Be sure you get skeletons that will work for you planned purpose. Here are some good ones (affiliate links):
Here is a Posable 16-inch skeleton. These are great if you want to study the joints and movement of the skeleton. Here is another posable 16-inch option. They look a little more realistic, but are more expensive.
If you plan to do the play dough muscle groups, a smaller skeleton that allows less movement is easier to work with, like these guys.
Here is a great larger skeleton that would work for the bone race. It is 3 feet tall.
Finally, for the Forensics activity, you would probably get a full sized skeleton if you want your students to measure bones for height. Since it does not need to be posable, they are not too pricey. Here is a good one. Alternatively you could use a smaller skeleton and just tell students that “you measured this femur and it is 49 cm long.”
So embrace the season, gather those plastic skeletons and let your students have some fun while learning. And be sure to play ‘Spooky Scary Skeletons’ on loop the whole class period!
Happy teaching!
