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Loved it in high school. My friends and I even did some extracurricular dissecting on the salmon, rabbits, deer we hunted and fished instead of just butchering them.
I took an f and I saw no need in dissection unless I was going into the medical field thank God my father agreed and knew I would taking an f for that class we had no partners so no one got an f except for me . My dad let it go because he and I had a talk about it and how cruel it was and just not something I wanted to do being an animal lover . Of course the teacher had a problem with it and my dad told her to sod off . That woman never looked my way again for the rest of the year and can I say I was grateful for such .
I found it interesting. Until the day in first year biology when we all showed up to class, and there was a sign on the door stating the fetal pigs we'd started the week before had gone rotten, so class was cancelled! The lab stunk for weeks afterward. Ugh.
When I was in high school biology, I couldn't make the first cut, so my lab partner had to do that. Then I did the rest of the dissection.
A decade later, when I was an earth and general science teacher, I got stuck with one class of biology for "low level" students. When it came time for frog dissection, the principal decided that the "low level" students didn't need to do the frog dissection, so to save money, they would watch a film. My students were furious...after all, it's a highlight of the biology course. Well, there was a small swamp out in back of the school, so a couple of students and I went out after school and caught a dozen toads...the frogs were too fast for us...and just how different could they be. But I couldn't stand the idea of pithing them (sticking a needle in the brain to cause death), so I got a huge bell jar and put the toads in there along with a large piece of cotton soaked in chloroform (this was in the 1970s, and we had it in the chemistry lab). The toads were in their all night, and the next early afternoon when we did the lab I thoroughly rinsed off the toads, the kids pinned the toads to the wax dissecting trays...and about half of the toads weren't dead and became conscious...fortunately before we started dissection. What a nightmare. Another night in the bell jar took care of situation. All because the principal didn't want to waste money buying 12 frogs and they had a geologist teaching biology.
OMG, that is actually hysterical ... a bunch of kids & their undead, “zombie” frogs!
I have always been interested in science and biology but I'm glad that any class I ever took didn't go beyond dissecting a frog. I think it would have been wrong to cut open a pig or a cat. When you think about it what are they hoping the average student is going to learn from that? I can see if one has a science major or is planning on medical school but why kill the cats and pigs? I'm sure if given a choice those animals wouldn't have donated their young bodies to science.
When I was in a zoology class at Oregon State, one of our lab activities was to dissect nightcrawlers (a large type of angleworm), while they were still living, so we could see their row of 5 hearts, beating. But the budget for the class was limited and they only bought one scrawny worm for every four students.
But years before, my father had obtained several dozen of a giant species of nightcrawler from somewhere and planted them on our farm. They expanded their population to become many thousands. So I went home before the next lab session and on a rainy spring evening, caught 100 of the biggest ones. The lab instructors were delighted to get them and all the students had large worms to themselves. The other lab section got them also and the rest were planted at the campus farm, where they multiplied and are probably still there.
By delicately slicing into the skin of the nightcrawlers, those 5 hearts could be seen, throbbing away. Most people think that a worm is just a gooey mess inside, but if you open them up carefully, you can see their amazing anatomy at work. An interesting thing is that they're hermaphroditic, having both male and female sexual parts. When you see them partially emerged from their holes on wet nights, they're looking for partners, to do what's called, "conjugating" or to have a double, reciprocating hookup, 69 style.
One of our lab instructors, before Woody Allen ever used his version of this line, explained hermaphroditic sex as "Doubling your pleasure, doubling your fun" (apologies to Wrigley's chewing gum). There are some people, such as survivalists, who eat worms like this, chewing them right down, when lost in the jungle. Aren't you all glad that I'm not your children's biology instructor?
I didn't enjoy knowing the frogs we're killed just do we could dissect them but I wasn't squeamish about it. I am not a snowflake.... I poked plenty of roadkill with sticks when I was a child. I can remember the bloated bellies moving from the maggots inside. I guess I (and the other dirty nasty little children) was just lucky one never exploded.
I have always been interested in science and biology but I'm glad that any class I ever took didn't go beyond dissecting a frog. I think it would have been wrong to cut open a pig or a cat. When you think about it what are they hoping the average student is going to learn from that? I can see if one has a science major or is planning on medical school but why kill the cats and pigs? I'm sure if given a choice those animals wouldn't have donated their young bodies to science.
I couldn't stand it in high school. In college we had the same frog for the entire semester, twice a week, same frog (or what was left of it.) Pretty bad.
I married a biology teacher who gave the class LIVE frogs and he would fail anyone who wouldn't kill their own frog. I talked him into stopping this practice. I told him that it was wrong to punish people for not being able to kill. Then I got a divorce, lol.
I couldn't stand it in high school. In college we had the same frog for the entire semester, twice a week, same frog (or what was left of it.) Pretty bad.
I married a biology teacher who gave the class LIVE frogs and he would fail anyone who wouldn't kill their own frog. I talked him into stopping this practice. I told him that it was wrong to punish people for not being able to kill. Then I got a divorce, lol.
...and hopped right out of that marriage!
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