animal dissection in HS

[blessedwithboys]

i know how i feel. talk to me about how you feel.

[daytripper75]

It should be available but not mandatory.

[lauren]

I think a student should be able to opt out based on deeply held philosophical beliefs (not just because they don't like the smell of formaldehyde!) . I have heard (have not yet seen) that there are online tutorials that teach the same material.

[mtiger]

I see no problem with it, especially for kids who are interested in entering Life Sciences fields. Sorry, but there is no real way to learn about the body (be it human or animal) and how it works than getting down and dirty. I sure wouldn't want a surgeon operating on me if s/he's never had any practice!

[kittykat2481]

In our high school, if you had real problems with it, you could do something on the computer instead. You had to have a real reason though - not just not liking the smell, like someone else said. I'm not sure how they went about justifying themselves. I enjoyed the disections, but I'm graduating from nursing school in 2 weeks, so I guess the way bodies work is just an interest of mine.

[earthmama369]

Every high school student, every year, doing dissection adds up to a LOT of dead animals. I think the opt-out option should be encouraged for anyone who isn't really into it. I remember being the only one to opt-out in my high school biology class. I got the highest grade in the class, using a computer program. A lot of the students just screwed around and played with the bodies, which was a complete waste of the life that was taken for that study unit. I'd rather the opt-out was the standard rather than the exception, with those students who are serious about an interest in biology, medicine, etc., being able to opt-in for dissection. (Although even then, I found the computer program to be very high quality. As a rule, I did NOT get the highest grade in that class, but for that unit I did better than even the dedicated "bio smarties" -- I think there was a much greater margin of error in doing dissection on a preserved body than in using a computer program.)

[ChristaN]

If a person is really intending something in a life science as a career, most of that training is going to be garnered in college, not high school, so I don't imagine that most students are missing a terrible lot by not dissecting animals in middle school and high school.

Dd11 opted to do the computer model dissection this year for 7th grade life science b/c she is a life long vegetarian. She does want to major in marine biology/mammology in college, so she is aware that she will need to do necropsies at some point. She is much less opposed to that if the animal died of natural causes. Her point is that we don't kill humans for medical students to learn about the human body. We wait for them to die and donate their bodies to science. She feels that it should be the same with animals -- if they die we can dissect them; if they are still alive, we don't kill them just to learn about their anatomy.

[mtiger]

My 16yo plans on going into Marine Biology, and currently attends a HS that specializes in Marine Sciences. They are very environmentally conscious, yet they do also do dissections. And learn a lot through them.

[Sarah W]

I don't have an issue with them, but if people want to opt out they should be allowed.

We spent around a week dissecting a cat in HS and we really learned a lot. We did it by teams though so it was 3 or 4 people per animal.

[mtiger]

My son opted out, and that's fine.

[zoebird]

i feel that it can wait until university or graduate school.

[GoBecGo]

I feel they should be available and there should be an option for those who don't want to do them so grades/knowledge don't have to suffer if the child chooses not to do the dissection.

When i was at school the only dissection we did in biology was the eyeball of a cow (which we got from the slaughterhouse - those cows were killed for meat anyway, so nothing was being bred or killed specifically for us to dissect them (at the time i remember thinking at least the animals were being used to that extent, rather than half of them being binned because we don't want to eat certain bits)), but the BSE crisis hit and my year wasn't allowed to touch anything off a cow, so we didn't do any dissections.

[AFWife]

Originally Posted by mtiger

I see no problem with it, especially for kids who are interested in entering Life Sciences fields. Sorry, but there is no real way to learn about the body (be it human or animal) and how it works than getting down and dirty. I sure wouldn't want a surgeon operating on me if s/he's never had any practice!

Originally Posted by Sarah W

I don't have an issue with them, but if people want to opt out they should be allowed.

We spent around a week dissecting a cat in HS and we really learned a lot. We did it by teams though so it was 3 or 4 people per animal.

We did it in my A&P class. It was really helpful to be able to see and feel muscles and whatnot.

[Sarah W]

I will say that ours was only for the Advanced Bio course. They got animals that had been put to sleep and had been donated. While I think kill shelters are horrible, animals weren't being killed just for out class.

[AFWife]

Originally Posted by Sarah W

I will say that ours was only for the Advanced Bio course. They got animals that had been put to sleep and had been donated. While I think kill shelters are horrible, animals weren't being killed just for out class.

We had cats. A lot of them had untreatable heartworms or were totally feral and would have been put down anyway.

[Linda on the move]

Originally Posted by AFWife

We had cats. A lot of them had untreatable heartworms or were totally feral and would have been put down anyway.

on the up side, I'd bet that high school students who have this experience are more likely to spay/neuter their pets, and to use heart worm prevention.

[*MamaJen*]

I agree they should be available but with an opt-out for ethical reasons. I've been a vegetarian since I was 11 and opted out of dissection in high school. Only I was pretty science minded and found the whole thing kind of fascinating and wound up watching over a friend's shoulder and kind of wanting to do it myself.

[blessedwithboys]

Originally Posted by Sarah W

I will say that ours was only for the Advanced Bio course. They got animals that had been put to sleep and had been donated. While I think kill shelters are horrible, animals weren't being killed just for out class.

Originally Posted by AFWife

We had cats. A lot of them had untreatable heartworms or were totally feral and would have been put down anyway.

this would be fine with me. i just get so sick thinking of frogs being bred just to be killed. are they kept humanely while alive? are they euthanized humanely? i'm guessing not.

i guess my objection is to animals being bred to die for a bunch of kids to cut up. maybe if it was college level and the students were med majors...i just dont know how much kids get out of it. and there are lots of studies linking HS dissection to violent aggressive behavior later in life. i dont think the practice does anything to foster compassion for the weak and doesnt weed out the kids that will get off on the blood and gore.

i had ds opt out and when his teacher gave hima virtual dissection, and it involved a real frog that had been gassed for the video, he balked, she emailed me, and i replied to say he didnt have to watch the video if he didnt want to but if there was some other way to do the assignment that didnt involve killing an animal, i would find it and get back to her.

[Linda on the move]

Originally Posted by blessedwithboys

and there are lots of studies linking HS dissection to violent aggressive behavior later in life.

links?

[AFWife]

In Bio we also did worms and bugs...I opted out of that one because of my horrible insect phobia. My lab partner did it and I watched. *shudders*