Do You See What I See: Hands-on Cow Eye Dissections
Help me give my students dissection materials to dissect cow eyes and learn the anatomy of the eye. Allowing students to have hands-on dissections helps bring the information and concepts to life, creating learning opportunities that last!
My students in Buffalo, NY come from a wide variety of backgrounds. My students represent many ethnicities, races, genders and social classes. This can often be challenging as classes are diverse in ability and interest. I teach a 7th grade science class, two Biology classes and two Anatomy and Physiology classes. In addition, my room and materials are used for various study halls. For this project, specifically my Anatomy and Physiology students will benefit and are the focus of this project.
Learning is so much more effective when students are actively engaged; dissections in Anatomy one way to accomplish this engagement.
By providing opportunities for dissection, students get hands-on experience with seeing anatomical structures and learning about connections within systems and organisms.
Our school is located in the heart of Buffalo, NY and students from all over the city attend. They come with a diverse set of experiences and background but most come ready to learn every day, even if they lack basic supplies.
My Project
Students gain invaluable experience from hands-on learning. This is no different in upper level science classes. In my Anatomy and Physiology courses, I try to allow for as many hands-on experiences as possible. With a limited budget, I sometimes get creative in the labs I design. Students used droppers of water and alcohol to test evaporative cooling. Students swabbed their cheek then dyed the cells to see epithelial cells. Partners used an eraser, ruler and compass to test streak reactions and two-point discrimination. However, none of these experiences will replace doing actual organ and organism dissections. These dissections will truly bring what we are learning to life. Students will get to see first hand what various organs and tissues look like when they perform dissections.
Dissecting cow eyes will allow my students to learn by doing and to explore this sensory organ in a way that will help them make connections to the information learned in class.
I want my students to begin dissecting experiences earlier next school year. Having these materials will enable dissections to begin in the beginning of the year and enable my students to understand the structure of the eye, its connection to the nervous system and how that enables vision. Doing the cow eye dissection will be an invaluable experience and will enable my students to actually see what we are learning and make crucial connections in the content.
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