.... Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 Some of you may remember my Owl Pellet thread over the summer. ;) :ack2: Now, it's time for some cow eye dissection. Has anyone done the cow eye dissection kit from Home Science Tools? Do you have any advice? This is our biology year, so I ordered these for next week (for the 4th grader and 3rd grader). I will probably do the cutting and they can do the peeling back/observing. Experiences? Advice? (Everybody's advice on the owl pellets came in handy, BTW. Soaking them helped a lot. My 1st grader actually did the entire owl pellet on her own. She loved it...pulling skeleton after skeleton out of the owl pellet. :eek:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spy Car Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 :lurk5: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tammyw Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 Wow, your science study is interesting! Care to share what other fun things you've done? Also, would love to know where you got your owl pellets, and if you are using a curriculum? It sounds like the kind of stuff that would be popular in our house :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AFwife Claire Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 Now, it's time for some cow eye dissection. Has anyone done the cow eye dissection kit from Home Science Tools? Do you have any advice? This is our biology year, so I ordered these for next week (for the 4th grader and 3rd grader). I will probably do the cutting and they can do the peeling back/observing. I did cow eyes last year with my jr. high class, as well as with a CC group. You will definitely have to do the cutting! The sclera is really tough. Plus, there ais a ton of muscle and fat surrounding the eyeball you have to take/cut off before you can even start cutting the eye. Be careful not to cut off the optic nerve, which come out the back of the eye, as you are taking off all the muscle and fat. There are some good eye dissections on youtube. You should watch a few of them before you do it--then you will better know what to look for and exactly how and where to make the cut (you want to be behind the lens, for example). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.... Posted September 23, 2011 Author Share Posted September 23, 2011 There are some good eye dissections on youtube. You should watch a few of them before you do it--then you will better know what to look for and exactly how and where to make the cut (you want to be behind the lens, for example). This is a very good idea!! Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.... Posted September 23, 2011 Author Share Posted September 23, 2011 Wow, your science study is interesting! Care to share what other fun things you've done? Also, would love to know where you got your owl pellets, and if you are using a curriculum? It sounds like the kind of stuff that would be popular in our house :) Sure! This is our biology year, so everything is focused on that topic. I basically let the 4th grader and 3rd grader pick what they would like to study. The 4th grader is very interested in Botany right now and the 3rd grader is obsessed with Zoology. So, they wanted to read through Apologia's Land Animals and Botany together. We're about half-way thru the books already (we school year-round). Also, they chose some hands-on "labs". We did a Flower Dissection Lab, we dissected owl pellets, we're going to dissect the cow eye and I'm buying the Intermediate Dissection Kit from Home Science Tools (it includes a starfish, perch, frog, crayfish, grasshopper, and earthworm) and we are just going to have a bunch of dissection labs. I'll have them work on lab sheets during the dissection and label the anatomical parts, etc. I hope I'm allowed to post this, but this is where the dissection kits are: http://www.hometrainingtools.com/dissection-kit-intermediate/p/DE-KITINT/ I ordered the owl pellets from that company, some lab stuff and some beakers. We end up using the beakers all the time and they are awesome. Also, I just bought jeweler's loupes (there are a bunch of them on Amazon) and the kids (I bought one for each kid) can explore the "almost-microscopic world" LOL with them. Like...they could examine plant leaves with the loupes or parts of the flower... Oh, our last science project is going to be Amazing Bridges. I know this doesn't have anything to do with biology, but my son specifically requested it. You build three different types of bridges. http://www.hometrainingtools.com/amazing-bridges-kit/p/MC-BRIDGES/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoVanGogh Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 We have dissected owl pellets, worms, crayfish, fish, frogs, grasshoppers... But when DS was interested in dissecting a cow eyeball? :001_huh: I had to outsource it. I might have been able to do it, had DS not had eye surgery. Just made it a bit too... real. Good luck! :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heather in VA Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 The cow eye was great. We loved it. While a 4th grader might be able to do the cutting, it is very tough and you want to be careful as you cut so you can see all the details. Here's a website with directions, pictures and videos. http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/cow_eye/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tammyw Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 Sure! This is our biology year, so everything is focused on that topic. I basically let the 4th grader and 3rd grader pick what they would like to study. The 4th grader is very interested in Botany right now and the 3rd grader is obsessed with Zoology. So, they wanted to read through Apologia's Land Animals and Botany together. We're about half-way thru the books already (we school year-round). Also, they chose some hands-on "labs". We did a Flower Dissection Lab, we dissected owl pellets, we're going to dissect the cow eye and I'm buying the Intermediate Dissection Kit from Home Science Tools (it includes a starfish, perch, frog, crayfish, grasshopper, and earthworm) and we are just going to have a bunch of dissection labs. I'll have them work on lab sheets during the dissection and label the anatomical parts, etc. I hope I'm allowed to post this, but this is where the dissection kits are: http://www.hometrainingtools.com/dissection-kit-intermediate/p/DE-KITINT/ I ordered the owl pellets from that company, some lab stuff and some beakers. We end up using the beakers all the time and they are awesome. Also, I just bought jeweler's loupes (there are a bunch of them on Amazon) and the kids (I bought one for each kid) can explore the "almost-microscopic world" LOL with them. Like...they could examine plant leaves with the loupes or parts of the flower... Oh, our last science project is going to be Amazing Bridges. I know this doesn't have anything to do with biology, but my son specifically requested it. You build three different types of bridges. http://www.hometrainingtools.com/amazing-bridges-kit/p/MC-BRIDGES/ Thank you for the great ideas! I love Home Science Tools and now I have some new fabulous items to add to my list to buy :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.... Posted September 23, 2011 Author Share Posted September 23, 2011 The cow eye was great. We loved it. While a 4th grader might be able to do the cutting, it is very tough and you want to be careful as you cut so you can see all the details. Here's a website with directions, pictures and videos. http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/cow_eye/ Thanks for the link! I'm going to have the oldest kids do some online learning before we actually do the cow eye. :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.... Posted September 23, 2011 Author Share Posted September 23, 2011 Thank you for the great ideas! I love Home Science Tools and now I have some new fabulous items to add to my list to buy :) Yeah, they have plastic beakers...which I wasn't sure why we would use plastic beakers, but we've been using them constantly. We used them for our 1st grade unit on water and capacity...we used them to store our rodent skeletons :D...and I used them for Singapore Math 3b - where they have all those measurement problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tammyw Posted September 23, 2011 Share Posted September 23, 2011 Yeah, they have plastic beakers...which I wasn't sure why we would use plastic beakers, but we've been using them constantly. We used them for our 1st grade unit on water and capacity...we used them to store our rodent skeletons :D...and I used them for Singapore Math 3b - where they have all those measurement problems. Beakers for Singapore math problems - BRILLIANT!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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