Do you allow your children to perform dissections? We never did any when homeschooling middle school years, but our children did dissect frogs at a Christian high school. When I did biology many moons ago, we had to dissect fertilized chicken eggs and could see the little heart beating. Squeamish as I am, I was none too pleased with doing that particular experiment.
I don't plan on doing that. I plan to do virtual dissections. I may change my mind when I get there (because the real thing is much harder to do), but it'll depend on what the kids want to do. If they want to go into the science field later on, we'll probably do the real thing. If not, we'll probably do the virtual one. Besides, it's not like they won't do any dissection in college if they choose a science major.
Aside from virtual dissection there are also plastic models that show all the necessary things. Further I will never even use a worm for fishing after reading an article a number of years ago that scientifically talked about worms and how they have more nerve ending in their entire bodies then humans! The poor things no wonder they wiggle on the hooks. Plastic bait for me too.
I'm actually getting ready to order the intermediate dissection kit from homesciencetools We will do them right at home, I have no problem with it
We did it last year and it was so much fun! Then again my major was biology! We also used the Homescience Tools Kit
Where we live, people hunt and fish quite a lot, and many also raise animals for slaughter (including chickens and other fowl, and rabbits). So I don't think dissection will be that big a deal when/if we ever get around to that. (I never know until they get there what students I might have or what levels they'll be studying.)
Rachael's friend just posted some pictures she took. Her "little" brother caught and dissected some frogs. YUCK!!! They also showed the picture of the frog that "got away", sitting happily on a log.
The teen took a dissection class from a homeschooling mom, last May. My then 5th grader watched. Okay, I think the teen was more squeamish than the little one who did a lot of the dissecting herself. It doesn't seem hard to me. We had to buy a kit from some supply place online and kept the 'bodies' in the fridge until the day we used them. I found it interesting.
We haven't done any official dissections yet, but my husband has involved the kids in cleaning fish, pheasants and ducks, and he discusses each part as he does it. He also cuts open the stomach to see what the animal ate, and he showed them the bird’s crop and let them cut it open. I don’t have a problem with dissection, but I'm wondering what the advantage is to dissection as compared to a plastic model. What do children learn with dissecting a worm or a frog or even a cat like they did in the advanced biology class at my high school that they wouldn't learn by studying a book or a model or watching a video? My biology high school class dissected frogs. The only thing I took away from that was that frogs’ eyeballs bounce; a few boys made that discovery, not me. Yuck.
If my kids want to do actual dissections I'll go that route. If not, we will do virtual dissections. I always found it difficult to see what I was supposed to see on cadavers anyway.
We dissected bullfrogs in high school. About all I really learned from that (that I didn't already know about bullfrogs) was that you really really should use gloves when dealing with formaldehyde or specimens preserved in it, and that not all parts of an animal are exactly where the textbook says they are and aren't necessarily shaped like the illustration... Our teacher and some of the boys from the class actually went out one night and captured all our specimens themselves, and killed them by sticking them in jars of formaldehyde.
We've done it with everyone of ours that's gotten to high school biology so far. It's really just impossible, imho, to realize just how incredibly complex even a frog or worm is without seeing it yourself. I did it with a squeamish friend's children and by the end she was right in there with us, very interested. Modern specimens are not in formaldehyde and don't stink like they used to when i was in school. I get mine from Home 4 School Gear. They have a great easy-clean-up kit that has a disposable tray and gloves and wipes and something to cover your table, etc. You just sweep it all into the trash when you're done - awesome!
I remember when I was in highschool and we were going to dissect a baby piglet. Alot of my friends were outraged, and refused to participate. It was a big deal b/c the teacher wanted to fail us, but our argument was that it was a required course, we didn't sign up for it, and we didn't think it was right. Eventually we had to do a HUGE report, but we got it done and recieved a grade. If my kids want to do it, DH and I wont be around for it. We just don't think it'a right.
we have done online and co op for these reasons. I can't stand the smell of firmaldahyde to the point of upset stomach, I never enjoyed the cutting part myself just diagraming after it was done. So I allowed another teacher/parent to do the cutting class and I stayed with the kids who were doing the diagrams! Worked fine!
My kids have disected everything that has passed through our house. We have raised pigs and when it came time to butcher they disected every part of it. They have done the same with many of the animals we have had so when it came time for disecting in school we didn't order specimens because they kids have already done it hands on but we watched it virtual. It was more of a review for them. I have no problem with them doing it.
We haven't yet, but it is on my list of things to do. My son is all boy and he loves that kind of stuff. I never liked it in school, but I can handle it better now.
