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Recommendations for virtual biology dissection?


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Has anyone had good (or bad) experiences with virtual dissections for the lab component of high school biology?

 

My kids are finished with biology, but due to certain issues were unable to complete the lab component. Now we need to take care of the lab part this summer -- really by mid-July. I'm still considering doing standard "hands-on" dissections, but would also like to consider doing virtual dissections instead. If you can recommend any particular software (or if you were unhappy with it), I'd love to hear about it.

 

Thank you! :)

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I think I've seen them all now (ugh!) and Froguts was by far my favorite. It has the frog, but also starfish, squid, cow eye, and fetal pig.

 

It was really the fetal pig I was looking for, for the mammal organ systems. (And while I don't have a particular ethical objection to dissection in general, and we've done other dissections... the fetal pig was a little much even for me.)

 

Compared to the free online stuff, the pictures and animations were much clearer in Froguts -- a lot of the free stuff manages to be disgusting without actually showing anything useful. I wasn't much impressed with the Carolina Biological offering (Carolina BioLab) either, that way. Also BioLab was about $90 per species. Froguts is $35 or so for the whole thing, for a year's license.

 

The other think I really liked about Froguts (which is true of Digital Frog too), is that when you dissect a part, it walks you through each cut. Carolina BioLab just "pops" open to the part you're looking at. It's a minor thing, but I'm hesitant about claims that virtual labs are sufficiently similar to real labs... and so the more tedious details they include the better, IMO.

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Thanks so much for posting the info about froguts. I have a otherwise very enthusiasic biology student--but he is very squeamish (to the point of vomiting) about any kind of guts. I keep thinking he will grow out of it--but it seems to be getting worse!

We got a frog kit from Discovery, but I just don't feel it qualifies for a HS lab. This looks like a perfect fit.:001_smile:

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Thanks so much for the replies! I'm particularly interested in pursuing the Froguts, I think.

http://dissect.froguts.com/welcome.html

 

I really liked what the demo covered (although I wish they would've included the quiz for that section so I could see what it's like). And the variety of specimens available looks quite promising! $30 for one year of use at home, installed on up to 3 computers. Considering what it would cost for dissection supplies and specimens, I think this is very reasonable! I've looked at some other virtual dissections and they were way too basic.

 

I still see the value in hands-on dissection, but I think this will make virtual dissection a more viable alternative. Thanks so much!

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