Anatomy of a Dissection
Mr. Slazar's Honors Anatomy class had the opportunity of dissecting fetal pigs last week. Most of the lab students were hesitant at the start, the odor was not pleasant, but everyone eventually got into it without getting sick.
Mr. Slazar notes: "In the beginning of the year the students read about the 11 systems of the human body. Reading about the systems or looking at pictures of them is not the same as what you can observe with something like a pig dissection.
Even after watching a film on the dissection on the pig the students cannot fully appreciate the complexity of the lab itself. In the fetal pig the organs are arranged or located much as you would find them in a human. The objective of the lab is for the students to have a hands on experience in locating and identifying the organs of their body and seeing how they relate to each other. Another benefit of doing the dissection is that the students get to use the anatomical terms they have learned from their text book. The directions for the dissection in the lab manual constantly make use of anatomical terms.
At first some of the students are hesitant about the activity, but before long they are literally up to their elbows in the dissection. Later on in the year when they study the system separately the students will do other dissections on individual organs such as the heart, the brain, and the eye."
Please do not read or look further if you are at all squeamish.
