Virtually Gross

Posted by Beth Lynne Feb 21, 2007

Why do kids want to cut up dead things? And why do they want to do it in my classroom? The first day of school this year, I asked my sixth- and seventh-graders to write on the index cards I give them to write information about themselves what they wanted to do in science. Many of them, aside from writing that they hate science and expect to be bored, wanted to dissect a frog! I think that they say this because television perpetuates the idea that frog dissection is a normal part of middle and high school science, and that they just want to do what they see kids do on T.V. I am going to point out something here—most of my kids do not want to pick up a tissue off of the floor; how do they expect to cut up something that was once alive (in fact, come to think of it, several of my sixth-graders were sickened by the thought of cutting up mushrooms a couple of months ago, and they do not have blood or guts!) and also fill out some sort of accompanying worksheet? I do not see this happening. I do picture a lot of screaming and pretend queasiness in order to escape the classroom.

So, rather than coping with a situation none of us is prepared to deal with, I am going to look into online resources and software that my students can access whenever they feel the gruesome urge to slice something open that is not on a dinner plate. One site that I have found is simply titled “Virtual Dissection” which provides a menu of “Sheep Brain Dissection”, “Cow’s Eye Dissection”, “Earthworm Dissection”, “A Guide to Rat Dissection”, “Cat Dissection (I own cats! Isn’t that kind of going too far?)”, and of course, the ever-popular “Frog”, but only its nervous system. I have also found a very nice software kit, called Froguts, now featuring a fetal pig!