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(xpost) Biology lab: dissection


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I did post on the high school board.

 

My son will be starting Biology with Keystone and we'll be receiving a lab pack that includes: mollusk (clam or mussel), earthworm, crayfish, grasshopper, fish, and frog. I checked out Froguts but they don't have everything that is on this list. My ds14 is already upset at the idea of doing this. Of course, we haven't even gotten the materials yet so I don't know what they expect after dissection, i.e. lab reports, papers, diagrams, etc.

 

Have you had a child totally freaked out abour dissection? How did you handle this? When I was in school, both high school and college, I had a lab partner that was all too happy to do the dissection part and I wrote up all the papers. We obviously don't have a setup like that.

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I haven't checked the high school board so someone may already have linked you to this kit. I have ordered from Home Training Tools before with great results.

 

My ds's are both currently in the dissection phase of their biology and life science programs (at private school). Ds2 had to dissect an earthworm for life science. He was rather anxious about it but when it finally happened he said it wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. Ds1 has just done the earthworm and they'll be doing other specimens also. He also said it wasn't too bad--it was actually kind of interesting. The specimens are packaged differently than when we had to do them in school and they don't have that nasty formaldehyde odor. Ds1 says they don't really smell like anything, and he's very sensitive to smells.

 

So both started out a bit anxious, but now that they've done it it's turned out to be not as big a deal as they'd anticipated.

 

I hope it goes as well for you.

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I am dissecting with my 5th grader. We have done a sheep brain, a cow eyeball, a chicken leg quarter and a sheep heart.

 

It was pretty easy. My 5th grader was a teeny bit squeemish but my 6 year old was delighted. I was not thrilled but ok with it. I was very calm and matter of fact about it and so were my kids.

 

FYI, it is harder to cut things up than you might think. I am referring to muscle strength. The eyeball was encased in a large amount of fat and muscle. My 5th grader couldn't cut through it. My hand was aching by the time it was all cut off. Same with the heart. It was very thick and hard to cut. No 'slime' factor involved. I think that made it easier. We were hacking away at the things by the time we were done.

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