Ethical Issues Pertaining to Dissection

Recently, after completing a google search on, "Where do the animals for dissections come from?" some interesting points arose. I can not testify to the validity of them, but if they're true, they slightly alter my enthusiasm on conducting dissections at the high school level.

1. Does dissecting further a students education at the high school level? There are many people out there that do not think so. Many people think models are much clearer for the identification and wrote memorization of the organs of specimens. Go to this link

 ( http://www.animalearn.org/about.php) to access a search engine on the right hand side of the search page. After defining your criteria for a dissection substitution, an abundant amount of substitutions for preserved specimens will be displayed.

2. The following link, PETA's Take on dissection was disturbing. Even though it is a biased website, obviously designed be a PETA member, it makes some good points about the attitudes of students towards dissection. For example, In 1989, Larry Morris Brown of Wright State University polled ninth-grad students in Ohio for their opinions on dissection and discovered the following:
• 33% were bothered by dissection.
• 90% felt that they should be allowed to choose an alternative.
• 50% said that given the choice, they would choose an alternative.
• More than 80% said that teachers should encourage students to share their feelings about dissection and that animal rights should be a part of biology class.
In conducting the dissections in my classes, I actually saw about 20% of my students act the same way.

3. In addition to controversies about the ethics and utility of live animal dissection, many schools now also face financial pressures that make the cost of equipping classrooms and science labs with dissection kits and frog specimens prohibitive.

That’s where the popular phrase “There’s an app for that” comes in. The educational software maker Punflay provides one alternative to live animal dissections. Punflay has built dissection apps, available on iPad and desktop, which simulate the dissection process. Currently Punflay has two versions: frog and rat dissection. Click this Link to access the Link Site Punflay

Either way, whether you dissect or you do not, what needs to be taken into consideration are the ethical attitudes of students and parents alike. 

Some Students are Kinesthetically Intelligent

Here is a student that is very hard to motivate with a book or computer assignment. For him, the light switches on when he has the opportunity to get his hands dirty.

Owl pellet fully dissected!!!

Time to identify with the dichotomous key as a tool...

This is a real nice activity to establish predator- prey relationships in the Living Environment Ecology Unit!!!

Truly Motivated!

Here is a team of students identifying the organs of the frog

 

They really did a nice job!

 

Here is KA's Before....

 

And After Shots! Tidy it up KA.

 

 

 

Below is an extracted fetal pig...

 

 

Students were so pumped about this activity they wanted to

take the fetal pigs home with them!!! Some tried sneaking them out of

class in rubber gloves!

 

 

Dinner is served!

 

As previously stated there is no comparison from the virtual to the actual.

 

 

 

Owl Pellet Dissections

What makes this owl tick?

The owl pellet dissection is another dissection I do not find most of the Living Environment Dept. doing much more. In my opinion it is a excellent activity for high school freshmen. It develops a concrete connection between predator-prey relationships and reinforces the skills needed to use a dichotomous key for prey identification. 

For those that are squeamish about handling the egested parts of a rodent or bird, (prey) here is a link to a virtual owl pellet dissection and videos on the topic. 

1. It is the only site that pops up on a google search. Its ok, but it does not allow for much manipulation of photos.

http://www.kidwings.com/owlpellets/barnowl/index2.htm

There is a activity on this link that allows you to put the skeleton of a Red Squirrel back together. It is valuable because it helps students to identify the bones of the rodents they will encounter.

2. This is great video of an Eagle Owl stalking its prey. Just cut and paste the link below into your address bar or click the link!

http://www.dogwork.com/owfo8#.UYaqo_oYy80.gmailEagle Owl Approach

3. This video shows how owl pellets are collected. It is from the show, "Dirty Jobs".

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/dirty-jobs-owl-vomit-collector.html

Hopefully your students will embrace the owl pellet lab to make ecology real for them. If not the above should get the point across for them.